Skip to content

£154m in UK tech funding, Apple unveils iPhone 8 and X, Google appeals $2.73bn fine and more in The Week in Tech

Welcome to The Week in Tech, your roundup of the latest top tech news.

This week, we have more than £154m in tech investment, the latest on Apple’s new product launches and Google’s filing for an appeal on its $2.73bn fine.

Investments

Neyber raises £115m

London-based UK FinTech scaleup Neyber made headlines this week when it announced the closure of a £115m round, featuring a £100m contribution from Goldmans Sach.

The company, which allows businesses to offer employees access to ‘affordable’ loans, also received support from Deutsche Bank COO Henry Richotte, and Gaël de Boissard, the co-head of Credit Suisse investment bank.

This week’s announcement came after Neyber closed a £7.5m Series B in April.

Bizagi’s $48m

Buckinghamshire-based software firm Bizagi raised $48m (£32.6m) from Invus, a private equity firm.

The company, set up in 1989, produces software for digital transformation and employs more than 360 people spread across offices in the UK, Spain, Germany, US and Columbia.

Entrepreneur First lands $12.4m

Tech startup accelerator Entrepreneur First (EF) landed $12.4m (£9.2m) in a round led by Greylock Partners.

Mosaic Ventures, Founders Fund, Lakestar Capital and DeepMind founders Demis Hassabis and Mustafa Suleyman also participated alongside alumni Rob Bishop and Zehan Wang (Magic Pony) and Bryan Baum (Represent).

Co-founded by Alice Bentinck and Matthew Clifford, EF seeks to build technology startups by bringing together potential co-founders, and investing in them pre-team and pre-idea.

Bossa closes $10m Series A

Bossa Studios, the games developer behind ‘I am Bread’ and ‘Surgeon Simulator’ announced a $10m Series A led by Atomico earlier in the week.

Existing backer London Venture Partners also took part in the round.

The firm says it will use the cash to recruit talent.

Sn-ap’s £2m

On-demand coach travel startup Sn-ap received £2m in a round led by Kindred Capital.

A number of private investors from the travel and finance sectors also contributed to the round. The money will be used to expand its current service into further parts of the UK.

Peak raises £2.5m

Manchester-based DaaS firm Peak raised £2.5m in a Series A funding round led by MMC Ventures.

Peak leverages AI to help companies make better use of data and previously closed a Seed round led by Praetura Capital.

The company has an office in India and has raised £3.5m in total to date.

InfoSum’s $5m top up

InfoSum has topped up its Seed with an additional $5m, bringing its total raised to date to $8m.

Based in Basingstoke, the firm has created a decentralised technology to allow companies to ‘safely’ share data by allegedly removing the risks typically associated with collaborative research.

Existing backers Upfront Ventures and IA Ventures, were joined by LocalGlobe and Mosaic Ventures.

Flux raises £1.5m

London-based FinTech startup Flux raised $1.5m (£1.1m) in Seed funding in a round led by PROfounders, a venture capital firm.

Anthemis, Force Over Mass, Yarrow Capital, Fidel Manolopoulos, Alex Hoare and early Seedcamp investor Rosemary Forsyth also participated.

Flux, which delivers real-time receipts, says it will use the cash to hire across the board.

Other investments

Other investment rounds announced in the past week by UK tech companies include Easle’s £450,000 Seed and energy tech startup Labrador’s £1m raise.

Apple’s product launches

Tech giant Apple revealed its latest product range this week, including the iPhone x, iPhone 8,iPhone 8 plus and Apple Watch 3.

As part of its new offering, the £999 iPhone X will have an edge-to-edge screen, wireless charging and Face ID.

The new Apple Watch 3, the company also confirmed, will work independently from the iPhone.

On a more fun note, Apple also revealed it is launching a new Animoji feature –basically animated versions of emojis – in iOS 11.

Google fights back

In other news, Google has filed an appeal to fight a $2.73bn fine issued by the EU. The appeal, reports say, could take years.

The company submitted the filing earlier this week at the Luxembourg-based EU’s General Court. The news comes after the tech giant reportedly provided details to the EU specifying how it would change its practices by a Sept. 28 deadline to avoid additional fines.

Download of the Week

Our ‘Download of the Week’ is Swipii, an app which allows users to discover participating businesses within close proximity and exchange their purchases for rewards.

And finally

And finally, Elon Musk has released a funny blooper video of SpaceX’s failed rocket landings. Set to Monty Python’s theme song, the video shows failed attempts with reasons for failure, which include a sticky throttle valve and engine sensor failures.

Topics

Register for Free

Get daily updates and enjoy an ad-reduced experience.

Already have an account? Log in