Last week, investors from 48 venture capital firms from the UK and Ireland ascended on Belfast for Catalyst’s annual Inbound Investors event.

Held in the new state-of-the-art Ulster University campus in Belfast city centre on Thursday 12 September 2024, Inbound Investors connected high-growth potential Northern Ireland companies with relevant investors through pre-matched meetings, tailored to each participating company.

Organised by Catalyst and supported by headline partner, British Business Bank, Inbound Investors gave 50 fast growing Northern Ireland start-up and scale-up companies the opportunity to meet and pitch to 48 investors, discussing investments of up to £10m+.

Crowdcube founder Darren Westlake and co-founder Paul Rose have raised £150,000 from 230 retail investors, along with four angel investors who ‘cornerstoned' the round, for Disco, a new startup. The funding will help them expand their team and add more features for users to enjoy.

Quin AI has raised £1.5 million in seed funding, led by Blackfinch Ventures with support from SFC Capital, Logo Ventures, and Finberg. This milestone marks a pivotal step for the company as it continues innovating online behaviour prediction and personalisation.

Quin AI, the generative behavioural AI platform, is poised to transform how companies engage their customers online. By predicting customer behaviour in real-time, Quin AI enables enterprises to enhance their digital customer journeys, drive conversions, and, ultimately, boost engagement and revenue.

Challenger Credit Reference Agency, Infact has raised a £4 million seed funding round after securing FCA authorisation to establish the first real-time credit bureau for the digital financial services market.  

The funding was led by AlbionVC, with participation from 13books Capital, Outward VC, Form Ventures, and Portfolio Ventures. Infact is also backed by leading angel investors in the credit referencing, lending, and fintech space. This investment will be used to accelerate building the richer bureau database and to extend the product suite to help challenger lenders and banks reset the scales when it comes to credit. 

Green Angel Ventures has completed a new investment in Deakin Bio-Hybrid Materials, whose technology creates composites by combining bio-derived binders with widely available waste minerals, such as crushed limestone.

PARIS: Inbolt, the pioneer of real-time robot guidance solutions, has secured a €15 million Series A round. The round is led by Exor Ventures, and supported by Bpifrance and repeat entrepreneur Yann Fleureau, founder of Cardiologs. Existing investors MIG Capital (Germany), SOSV (US), and BNP Paribas Développement (France), are also investing in the round, taking the total raised by the company to €20 million. 

Aura Life, a provider of funeral services and funeral plan sales, has secured a £350,000 equity investment from the Coast to Capital Growth Fund via appointed fund manager, The FSE Group. The £2+million funding round, which also includes investments from the Oxford Innovation Fund and the FSE Investor Network, will support business growth including the creation of 16 new jobs.

The Department for Business and Trade has published its annual Investing in Women Code which finds that venture capital fund managers who have signed up to the Code are more likely to invest in female founders.

32% of all venture capital deals made by Investing in Women Code signatories were in female-founded companies last year, compared to the market average of 28%, revealed in the latest report published today. This is the fourth year in a row that Investing in Women Code signatories have outperformed the wider market.

Anglia Capital Group (ACG) is holding a female Angel investing seminar and pitching day at The EpiCentre, near Cambridge, on Friday 27th September 2024, sponsored by the British Business Bank.

Polish pet sitting and pet care startup Petsy has raised more than €1.1 million in funding from business angels.

Compliance-AI startup Falco has been announced as the winner of the South East Angels Kent roadshow.

Founders, investors, and key stakeholders from the Kent startup ecosystem came together in August 2024 for the startup event as part of the Startup Roadshow 2024 series. These events, hosted by South East

WeDonate, a reward platform for blood donors to encourage participation and Bluco, a WhatsApp-based app to make job applications easier, took the two £25,000 top prizes in this year's AXA Startup Angel competition.