International freight logistics and express courier specialist, ITD Global, has secured a £15 million investment from the UK-based growth capital investor, BGF. ITD Global is a tech-enabled logistics consolidator, which brokers parcel and freight solutions for eCommerce clients. In the last 12 months, the Heywood-headquartered business has facilitated the delivery of more than 11 million parcels to addresses in the UK and overseas.   The significant investment from BGF will help the multi-award-winning business to deliver its ambitious growth plans through the expansion of its UK depot network, further development of its cutting-edge technology platform, and growing its newer services

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed an investment of $5 million to Bactofile, a specialist in gut microbiome health in the food and feed industry. The funding will be used to accelerate the impact of Bactolife’s technology platform to develop binding proteins, a biologic solution to reduce the risk of gut infections in humans and animals. Bactolife takes a unique approach to gut health for the greater good of humans and animals by developing breakthrough binding proteins that can reduce the risk of developing gut infections at an affordable price. With Bactolife’s technology platform and the investment made

Oxwash, the UK’s first sustainable on-demand laundry and wet-cleaning startup, has raised £10 million in a series A funding round led by  Untitled VC, as it looks out to grow its nationwide footprint. Long standing supporter Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, also returned for the round, as did Indeed founder Paul Forster, and Holly and Sam Branson. New investors in the round include 8 Dimension Ventures, System Capital Management (Ukraine’s largest VC Fund), and Khimji Ramdas LLC. Many more existing investors chose to partake again, including Reckitt venture arm Access VC, Pentland Group, Ascension Ventures, Vala Capital, and Truesight Ventures.

Tech24, backed by HCI Equity Partners, has acquired AmeriCold and Arrowhead Commercial Equipment (Arrowhead). Tech24 is a national provider of repair and maintenance services for foodservice and commercial HVAC equipment. Arrowhead and AmeriCold represent Tech24’s tenth and eleventh add-on acquisitions in the highly fragmented foodservice repair and maintenance market. Financial terms have not been disclosed.    AmeriCold is a provider of cold-side repair and installation services to customers in the New York metro area, Washington DC, and Southeast Florida. The company has a wide range of customers across the restaurant, grocery store, and institutional end markets, from New York City’s

11:11 Systems (11:11), a managed infrastructure solutions provider backed by Tiger Infrastructure Partners, is to acquire Sungard Availability Services’ cloud managed services business. The transaction is expected to close this autumn. The Cloud Managed Service business is a sophisticated, mature cloud management practice that provides transparency, control and compliance to blue-chip, enterprise customers utilising hybrid and multi-cloud environments to power their businesses. As a part of this transaction, 11:11 will gain a team of highly skilled employees specialising in cloud management, customer service, AWS and Azure professional services and cybersecurity. 11:11 will also retain part of Sungard AS’ back-office and

The Riverside Company, a private investor focused on the smaller end of the middle market, has invested in Meridian Flavors Inc (Meridian), a manufacturer of sweet flavours for bakery, cereal, beverage and other product categories. The acquisition is an add-on to Riverside’s FlavorSum platform, which helps growing food and beverage companies go to market quickly and cost-effectively with innovative solutions for delivering great-tasting products that inspire loyalty among consumers. The acquisition of Meridian furthers FlavorSum’s objective of becoming food and beverage companies’ number one choice for flavor development and production. Growth through acquisition remains a key focus for FlavorSum, and

Northstar Capital (Northstar), a provider of junior capital for middle market private equity transactions, has invested in IronCraft, a portfolio company of LFM Capital (LFM). Terms of the transaction, which closed in November 2021, have not been disclosed. Northstar provided debt and an equity co-investment to help LFM finance the transaction. The Northstar team remains committed to partnering with experienced management teams and private equity sponsors to help good companies become even better. IronCraft is the seventeenth platform investment in Fund VII, a $500 million committed parallel fund strategy consisting of Northstar Mezzanine Partners VII and Northstar Mezzanine Partners SB.IC.

The Finance Durham Fund (Finance Durham), established by Durham County Council, overseen by Business Durham, and administered by Maven Capital Partners (Maven) has completed a profitable exit from threat intelligence firm Intelligence Fusion via a sale to Sigma7, a global risk services specialist and a portfolio company of Growth Catalyst Partners.

Home entertainment and hospitality platform, HOMETAINMENT, has raised nearly £400,000 (£390,000) in funding through a crowdfunding campaign and is set to scale in London and abroad. The funding round, which was run via Crowdcube, exceeded its minimum target of £350,000 with 200 investors and was overfunded by 11%, raising a total of £390,309. The platform had a pre-money valuation of £3,000,000.   Launched in June 2021, HOMETAINMENT is aiming to change the future of entertainment and hospitality at home and is tapping into the UK catering services sector worth £1.4 billion and expected to grow by 165% in the next

Foresight Group (Foresight), a specialist regional private equity and infrastructure investment manager, has sold Mi Healthcare to Probo Medical (Probo), part of Avista Capital Partners. Mi Healthcare is a provider of service and maintenance of diagnostic imaging equipment for both NHS and private hospitals. Mi Healthcare will return 4.1x to Foresight’s maiden £58 million North West focused fund. This is the Fund’s fourth exit which has returned total fund commitments twice over and c£110 million, with thirteen assets remaining in the portfolio.   Since Foresight made its original investment in 2016, Mi Healthcare has expanded its service offering and geographical