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.
Chancellor John Healey will announce a £150m fund for university spinouts and startups across Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle. The money is being drawn from the British Business Bank's existing budget rather than added to it, and is intended to pull in private co-investment.
London-based Claret Capital Partners has held the final close of Claret European Growth Capital Fund IV at €575m, ahead of a €500m target and up from the €350m second close announced a year ago. More than 90% of the capital came from institutions, including the British Business Bank, the European Investment Fund, Germany's KfW and Ireland's ISIF.
EQT has agreed to acquire a majority stake in London-based specialty (re)insurance broker McGill and Partners at an enterprise value of $2bn (roughly £1.48bn), buying out founding backer Warburg Pincus while founders Steve McGill and John Lloyd reinvest and all 600-plus staff take a payout through the firm's all-employee ownership structure.
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.
London-based Fresha has appointed country leads in Germany and Mexico and opened a Berlin office, three months after taking an $80m primary investment from KKR-managed funds at a valuation above $1bn. The company has raised $285m in total.
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.
