M&G Investments and Schroders are among the firms bidding to manage the £1bn Scale-up Fund, the pension-backed vehicle announced in July and administered with British Business Bank support, according to reporting by Sky News.
Strolll, a Stafford-based software-as-a-medical-device company building augmented reality neurorehabilitation tools, has secured £4.3m (€5m) from Innovate UK across a £3.6m innovation loan and a £700k grant, plus a separate equity round led by IW Capital with Cleveland Clinic and Future Planet Capital Regional participating.
The British Business Bank has agreed to commit up to £46m to Zinc Capital Management's second institutional vehicle, the Science-for-Impact Fund, through its Enterprise Capital Funds programme. The fund is targeting £70m and aims to build a portfolio of 80 new deeptech companies.
The UK medical imaging company has closed $220m (£162m) in combined financing: a $90m (£66m) equity round led by Noteus Partners, with Aviva, Concord Health Partners, YZR Capital and Oxford Capital participating, plus $130m (£96m) of debt from VerisFi Capital and Atempo Growth. Revenue has doubled over the past year to a $165m (£122m) annualised run rate.
Uber has opened bookings for Wayve-operated autonomous vehicles in London from today, making the London-based startup the first robotaxi operator to carry public passengers in the capital. Wayve closed a $1.5bn Series D in February at an $8.6bn post-money valuation, with Uber itself on the cap table.
London movement-intelligence startup HITAI has acquired the technology and intellectual property of Quell, the UK fitness gaming developer that raised a $10m (€8.63m) Tencent-led Series A in 2023 and counted Y Combinator, Khosla Ventures and Heartcore Capital among its backers. Terms were not disclosed.
System1's board has unanimously rejected a third takeover offer from Brave Bison, which values the AIM-quoted market research firm at about £43.1m and comes from a bidder that already owns 28% of its shares. The board says the offer document carries no irrevocable undertakings or letters of intent from any System1 shareholder.
British AI chip designer Fractile is in talks to raise around $600m at a $6.5bn valuation, according to reports, three months after closing a $220m round. Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Thrive Capital and Founders Fund are named among the prospective co-leads.
Revolut chief executive Nik Storonsky is in talks over a new incentive package that would hand him a fresh block of stock if the fintech reaches a valuation of around $500bn (€433bn), a milestone that sits far above the $115bn implied by its current secondary round.
