Fundraising by existing investment companies (known as secondary fundraising) has bounced back strongly this year, with £8.71 billion raised so far.

The latest diversity report from FinTech recruitment company Storm2, has found that female representation in Nordic FinTech engineering teams stands at 11%, below the global average of 17%.

Research by Yoppie reveals that European companies with female-only founders receive less than 1% of all VC capital investment despite the number of female-led companies almost doubling over the past decade.

Invest Europe, in partnership with the European Investment Fund (EIF), has published ‘The VC Factor - Pandemic Edition’, 

British Business Bank is managing £89bn of finance support to 1.77m businesses, up from £8bn in 2020, with an above target adjusted return of 14.6%

The number of UK deals announced so far this year has increased 49% to the highest year-to-date tally since our records began in 1980, driven by a 54% increase in the number of deals targeting UK companies according to Refinitiv Deals Intelligence.

The number of venture capital ‘megadeals’ in the UK has increased tenfold over the last decade, according to a report by leading UK law firm Shoosmiths in partnership with intuitive data platform, Beauhurst – UK Megadeals: Past, Present and Future.

Research conducted by the EIS and SEIS representative organisation, the EIS Association suggests that Independent Financial Advisers (IFAs) are hesitant about advising clients to invest in SEIS opportunities due to the perceived risks associated with the product, as well as concerns about the impact on PI Insurance and compliance. Notwithstanding these concerns PI and Compliance specialists spoken to by the EISA both felt that neither should be an issue.

The number of acquisitions made by private equity-backed businesses in the UK hit record numbers in H1 2021, with 286 transactions completed during the first six months of the year, according to Rickitt Mitchell’s Buy and Build Barometer.

New data released by Innovate Finance, the industry body representing the UK fintech industry, reveals the share split in the SME lending market between the big banks and alternative lenders during the pandemic.

BGF, the UK & Ireland’s most active investor, has invested more than £316 million across nearly 80 businesses in the first six months of 2021. Exit activity reached record levels during the same period, with 15 exits generating an average money multiple of 2.5x.

Early-stage businesses in Northern Ireland are attracting larger equity funding rounds than in previous years but could raise even higher amounts if more external investors were aware of the quality of companies emerging from the region, according to the managers of Co-Fund NI.