The Insights People, the Manchester-based company which is a global leader in kids, parents and family market intelligence, has secured a £500k investment from DSW Angels, the business angel network focused on UK regional scale-up companies.

The investment will allow The Insights People to boost its international growth and follows its expansion into Brazil, Mexico and Canada in recent months. The company expects to create around eight new jobs in Manchester in the next six months.

The Insights People surveys 200,000 children and parents a year, providing clients with valuable insights into kids' attitudes, behaviours, and consumption. Its award-winning market intelligence and portal enables users to tailor the results to their own requirements to inform their marketing strategy, identify market trends and evaluate return on investment.

HR DataHub, the HR data benchmarking platform, has raised a £1m seed round led by the Angel CoFund and backed by an angel syndicate of seasoned HR experts including Chris Bruce and Michael Whitfield, founders of the hugely successful Thomsons Online Benefits; Oliver and Ben Black, founders of My Family Care and Tinies businesses; and HR DataHub’s new Chairman, Ian Dyke. The funding will be used to further develop and scale the platform both domestically, and internationally. 

Riverside Europe, a global private equity firm focused the middle market, has invested in Germany-based Evint, a workforce management software provider.

Reachdesk, a direct mail and corporate gifting software platform for B2B companies, has announced a $6 million funding round led by Five Elms Capital to further expand throughout the US, Europe and Asia Pacific. Reachdesk enables sales and marketing professionals to create, manage, scale and measure the ROI of their direct mail and gifting campaigns in one place by integrating offline channels to a company’s existing marketing tech stack. Reachdesk was founded in London by Alex Olley, Meelan Radia, Jay Radia and Alex Santos in 2018. The company is now headquartered in New York.

INSTANDA, the leading customer and policy management platform for the insurance industry, and Capco, the global management and technology consultancy, and have today announced a new partnership that leverages technology and data to further accelerate ongoing digital transformation in insurance.

Omnipresent Group has raised $2m in a seed round led by Playfair Capital and Episode 1. The fundraise was closed within six  weeks during the height of the pandemic with participation from investors including Entrepreneur First, Truesight Ventures, Charlie Songhurst, Andrew Goodman, Akash Gupta, Srin Madipalli and Ian Hogarth.  The financing will be used to extend Omnipresent’s coverage to 80 markets by the end of 2020,  

Anexsys Group, which provides technology and consultancy services for law firms, corporations and the public sector, has been acquired by private-equity-backed Xact Data Discovery from Hobs Group.  

Genius Group has completed the acquisition of Entrepreneur Resorts Ltd, comprising luxury resorts and lodges, beach clubs and city co-working hubs for $32.6 million. The acquisition results in a combined entrepreneur education group with over 1.4 million students in 200 countries, and a faculty of 2,000 mentors guiding students to launch and grow their own businesses.

Withers tech has represented Draper Esprit, one of Europe's leading VC funds, on the Series C funding round in fraud detection business Ravelin.

Playfair Capital backed Heka (previously GoSweat), confirms the launch of its new website and benefits platform on the 24th of June. Fit for the Covid-19 era and beyond, the all-new platform features an improved user and HR experience.

The company recently completed its pre-seed funding round. Exceeding their target of £750,000, and successfully raising £1 million within two months of starting their raise.

The round was led by Playfair Capital with participants including experienced Angels, ex-professional athletes, mental health experts, as well as the founders of Thomson’s Online Benefits.

Willa, the fintech startup dedicated to helping freelancers get paid on time without the associated admin and hassle, has raised a $3 million seed round led by the EQT Ventures fund. With the investment, Willa is set to launch Willa Pay to provide its community of creative freelancers with an easier way to get paid with no paperwork or risk. The Willa team is on a mission to ensure these creative communities can optimise their working conditions, spend less time on paperwork and - most importantly - get paid for the work they have done.

Maven Capital Partners has led a further investment in Bright Network, a media technology recruitment platform which connects leading employers with the high quality graduate workforce of tomorrow. The transaction also includes investment from private equity firm Seneca Partners.

Maven originally invested in Bright Network in July 2018, alongside existing and angel investors, to support the launch of its new Software as a Service (SaaS) solution, and the company has since generated 50% Year on Year revenue growth.