Deals of the Week August 1 to August 5 – a Growth Business round-up

11 Aug

Written By fifty50

Deals this week include an alternative to palm oil, a social app which connects people based on shared interests and a mystery activity subscription service

Spinout speeding up drug discovery given £3.5m boost

University of Manchester spinout Imperagen, which is building technology to speed up the development of enzymes essential for drug discovery and development, has secured £3.5m in a seed round led by IQ Capital and Northern Gritstone.

The start-up’s technology enables pharmaceutical companies to rapidly establish more efficient and environmentally friendly manufacturing at scale.

Start-up that helps firms adopt AI generates £2m

Humanloop, an AI start-up which helps businesses adopt the use of AI technology, has secured $2.6m (£2.1m) in seed funding. Index Ventures led the round, with participation from Y Combinator, LocalGlobe and Albion VC.

Humanloop creates data annotation tools that help speed up the training of a machine learning algorithm to complete otherwise human tasks. The technology has already been used to moderate Facebook messages and generate draft responses.

Real estate investment platform cements £2m backing

Proptech start-up Built AI has raised £2m for its commercial real estate investment analytics platform. Executives Philipp Mohr and Puli Liyanagama led the round, with participation from MMC Ventures, Plug and Play and Innovate UK’s Smart Grant.

The London-based start-up’s technology provides data-led “street level” insights on any property and location to help with investment decisions.

Palm oil alternative gets tasty £1.6m

Clean Food Group, a foodtech start-up which has developed an alternative to palm oil, has secured €1.96m (£1.6m) in a seed funding round led by Agronomics.

Dependence on palm oil in many foods is leading to deforestation and a rise in greenhouse gases. Clean Food Group is collaborating with the University of Bath to help scale its lab-grown yeast-based alternative.

Social app brings in £452,000

A Manchester-based social app that connects people based on interests and hobbies has secured €530,000 (£452,000) in a pre-seed raise.

The Linkup app aims to encourage more in-person socialising following the pandemic and launches in September. High-profile investors joined in the round including musicians Krept & Konen and YouTuber Callum Airey.

Mystery experience service bags £350,000

Activities subscription service Buckt has secured £350,000 investment from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF).

The Birmingham-based start-up handpicks the best activities in each region and sends its subscribers five mystery tickets at a fixed price every month, offering experiences worth more than three times their face value.