Aura Funerals, the digital end-of-life planning and funeral service, has announced a successful £750,000 funding round through Angel Investment Network, the online angel investment platform. This marks Aura’s third successful raise through the network. The funds were raised as part of a larger £3.2 million growth funding round.
According to GRiD, over the next 12 months, nearly a third (31%) of employers intend to increase their investment in employee benefits to provide support for staff. However, almost the same number (29%) of employers are looking to increase investment into funding support directly, which the industry body for the group risk sector believes is a concern.
Latitude59, a startup and technology event in the Baltic States, New Nordics, and Kenya, is set to return to Tallinn in May 2025 with a new theme: Integrity & Perspective.
Stacks, the AI-powered workspace helping companies close their books quickly and efficiently, has announced a $3 million pre-seed round led by EQT Ventures, followed by a fast-tracked $7 million seed round led by General Catalyst, with EQT Ventures doubling down on their investment. The rounds also saw participation from s16vc and prominent angel investors including Mike Taylor, CFO of Gusto, and Simone Rüschenberg, CFO at Taktile.
A new survey by foodtech startup Revyve has revealed positive European attitudes towards yeast protein as a potential key player in the flourishing alternative protein market. The consumer study gathered insight from French, German, and British consumers through AI-moderated individual interviews. The goal was to gauge interest in its functional brewers and baker’s yeast ingredients as substitutes to egg proteins and synthetic texturisers.
StructureFlow, the visual modelling platform designed for navigating complex corporate structures, transactions, and processes, has acquired Blue J Diagramming, a visualisation tool widely used by accountancy and tax professionals. This move aligns with Blue J’s broader strategy to concentrate on its generative AI solution for tax research, marking a shift in its business focus.
Cambridge GaN Devices (CGD), a startup working in gallium nitride (GaN) power devices, has successfully closed a $32 million Series C funding round. The investment was led by a strategic investor with participation from British Patient Capital and supported by existing investors Parkwalk, BGF, Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC), Foresight Group, and IQ Capital.
WinWayLab is a free two-month online accelerator for zero-stage startups (you don’t even need an idea at the beginning) in the wine tech industry. The programme kicks off on March 4 2025, offering participants the chance to turn their ideas into successful businesses with expert guidance, funding and resources from Winno.
IMPOSSIBREW is a team of London-based beer lovers who are harnessing tech to create enhanced functional non-alcoholic beers that deliver both relaxation and exceptional taste. Its Social Blend technology helps drinkers unwind naturally, offering a true third choice beyond ‘drinking’ and ‘not drinking’ and pioneering a new category in functional drinking.
Defying today’s challenging funding landscape, healthtech startup Level Zero Health has announced a £5.5 million pre-seed funding round spearheaded by European VC, redalpine, to enable remote and continuous hormone monitoring using first-of-their-kind DNA-based sensors. HAX (SOSV), Entrepreneur First, and industry experts also contributed to the round.
The global construction industry, valued at $12 trillion annually, builds the infrastructure underpinning modern life – from highways and data centres to renewable energy. Yet, for decades, it has faced persistent challenges: inefficiencies, project delays, cost overruns, and a growing labour shortage. Despite its size, the industry spends less than 1% of revenue on IT, resulting in stagnant productivity growth for decades.
How employers support the health and wellbeing of employees will play a crucial role in the recruitment and retention strategy of 61% of organisations over the next 12 months, according to the latest research from Towergate Employee Benefits.
Generational, the UK-based startup in electric-vehicle battery-health testing, reveals its strategy to supercharge car-dealers’ and consumers’ confidence in used EVs with its intuitive, state-of-the-art battery-health assessment technology.
Ori, a UK-based provider of cloud infrastructure for AI, has secured a key strategic investment from Wa’ed Ventures, Saudi Aramco’s venture capital arm, as it eyes up explosive growth in the Middle East market over the coming 12 months. Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed.
FOUNDRY, the community focused co-working provider, has launched its latest location at New Acres in Wandsworth, South West London.
Latest research from The Global Payroll Association (GPA) reveals that UK PAYE employees paid £252 billion in income tax in 2024, Meanwhile, businesses paid £114 billion in employer National Insurance Contributions, a total which is set to grow significantly in 2025 following changes set out in Labour’s Autumn Budget.
Hydrogen heating technology company HYTING has announced financing from investment and venture capital firm BMH Beteiligungs-Managementgesellschaft Hessen and ebm-papst. The financing will see both firms become shareholders of HYTING, and the capital raised in this round will be used for further product development, expansion of the product portfolio, and to attract new customers.
Defence Builder, Ukraine’s defence tech accelerator supported by the Ministry of Defence, is starting an open call for applications for its second cohort. Building on the success and insights from the first batch, the programme will equip promising startups with mentorship, grants, and pitch opportunities to scale their solutions for the battlefield and beyond.
Healthcare is undergoing a fundamental transformation, shifting from reactive sick care to proactive health management, with consumers firmly in the driver’s seat. While the US market has seen the rise of consumer-centric healthcare champions like Hims/Hers, Headspace, and Function Health, Europe’s market remains underserved. Today, naturalX Health Ventures has announced a €100 million fund to accelerate this revolution in Europe, becoming the first specialised fund focused exclusively on the intersection of consumer and health in the European market.
FLIT, an engineering company that builds folding electric bikes for urban commuters, has raised £1.2 million in new funding with participation from ACF Investors, Cambridge Angels and former Head of Technical Development at British Cycling, Tony Purnell. The funding will be used to ramp up production of its latest model, the FLIT M2 at its Cambridge facility.
