Web hosting business Miss Group has completed its second acquisition in May – US-based web hosting provider and WordPress specialist CloudAccess from Cloud Equity Group. Headquartered in Michigan, USA, CloudAccess was founded in 2008 and offers comprehensive hosting and support platform services, specialising in WordPress and Joomla content management systems.   CloudAccess currently hosts over 20,000 websites and services over 4,000 customers, primarily located in the USA, across a range of sectors including education, healthcare, non-profit, and governmental institutions. The business will add-on to Seravo – a premium hosting and WordPress provider within Miss Group that’s listed as the world’s

Roadgas, a Nottingham-based supplier of renewable gas refuelling stations, has secured funding from MEIF Maven Debt Finance, part of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF), managed by Maven Capital Partners (Maven). The business designs, manufactures, installs and maintains liquefied and compressed renewable gas refuelling stations, and will use the funding for the installation of dedicated refuelling stations across the UK. Established in 2007, Roadgas works with several fleet operators, including Nottingham City Transport, which owns and operates a fleet of 167 biogas double-decker buses as part of its campaign and commitment to improved air quality.

Liminal, a wallet operations infrastructure that secures digital assets in a simple and efficient way, has raised $4.7 million in its seed funding round led by Elevation Capital. The round also saw participation from prominent investors like LD Capital, Woodstock, Nexus Ventures, and crypto ventures like CoinDCX, Hashed, Cadenza Ventures, Vauld, Better Capital, and Sparrow Capital. There are also marquee angel investors like Andreas Antonopoulos, Balaji Srinivasan, Sandeep Nailwal, Jaynti Kanani, Ajeet Khurana, amongst others. Liminal is the first wallet architecture to provide the MPC and MultiSig to secure digital assets across different blockchains. 

Franklin Resources, a global investment management organisation operating as Franklin Templeton, is to acquire BNY Alcentra Group Holdings (Alcentra) from BNY Mellon. One of the largest European credit and private debt managers, Alcentra has $38 billion in assets under management (AUM) with global expertise in senior secured loans, high yield bonds, private credit, structured credit, special situations and multi-strategy credit strategies. Through this acquisition, Franklin Templeton’s US alternative credit specialist investment manager, Benefit Street Partners (BSP), will expand its alternative credit capabilities and presence in Europe, doubling its assets under management to $77 billion globally. The transaction will also continue

ODILO, an EdTech industry leader with a mission to improve global literacy by democratising access to high-quality education, has raised €60 million in an investment round led by Bregal Milestone, a European technology growth capital firm. The round also includes participation from previous investors Swanlaab Venture Factory and CDTI.   ODILO offers the largest digital catalogue in the world of nearly three million titles from leading and popular publishers, currently accessed by 170 million users through 8,500 organisations across 52 countries. The company’s mission is to democratise access to high-quality education, improving literacy and empowering informed thinking for users globally. 

Private equity company Baird Capital has sold portfolio company Crisp Thinking Group (Crisp) to Kroll, Inc.

Apis Growth Fund I, a private equity fund managed by Apis Partners (Apis Partners), a UK-based asset manager that supports growth stage financial services and financial infrastructure businesses, is to sell the whole of its interest in payment solutions provider Q Link Holdings Ltd (Q Link) to Sanlam Private Equity (SPE). Q Link provides payment application software to improve collection rates for the insurance industry and other third-party benefits providers in South Africa, while optimising costs. The company facilitates collections for over 30% of all recurring retail life insurance premiums in the country, and has focused on putting customer welfare

Venture capital investor Forgepoint Capital has launched Surefire Cyber, a new incident response firm that helps cyber insurers, brokers, law firms and the organisations they support better manage cyber events. Founded and led by leading incident response expert Billy Gouveia, Surefire Cyber emerged from stealth with $10 million in Series A funding from Forgepoint Capital following its successful incubation within the firm. The second startup incubated at Forgepoint, Surefire Cyber has benefitted from a wide range of support including recruiting, platform development, introductions to its first customers, marketing, governance and critical introductions. These company building blocks have enabled Surefire Cyber

Yobota has announced its partnership with Tranch, a buy now, pay later (BNPL) startup platform on a mission to deliver more flexible payments to fast-growing businesses. Founded in 2016, London-based core banking provider Yobota has built a fast, flexible, cloud-native core banking platform that allows clients to create and run financial products. The announcement follows news that Tranch has raised £3.5 million ($4.25 million) in pre-seed equity and debt funding to expand its B2B offering.

ACA Group (ACA) and Foreside Financial Group (Foreside), two of the leading providers of governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) solutions to clients in the financial services industry, have completed their merger. Foreside’s distribution business will be rebranded as ACA Foreside and will become a division under ACA. Genstar Capital (Genstar), a leading private equity firm, is the lead investor in the combined business. ACA’s current CEO Shvetank Shah will be the combined entity’s CEO.   The combined firm has over 1,250 employees and 18 offices globally and will serve over 6,300 clients.