Bansk Group (Bansk), a consumer-focused private investment firm dedicated to building distinctive consumer brands, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a majority stake in amika and Eva NYC, two of the fastest-growing scaled independent haircare brands in the US. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Soluna Holdings, Inc (SHI), the parent company of Soluna Computing, Inc (SCI), has secured $35 million in project financing to develop green data centers co-located with renewable energy assets. Spring Lane Capital, a private equity firm, invested private funds in Soluna as a part of their strategy focused on hybrid project capital for sustainability solutions in the energy, food, water, waste and transportation industries.  The capital will help develop three behind-the-meter (BTM) projects designed to convert wasted renewable energy into clean computing services such as bitcoin mining and artificial intelligence.

Travel Manager, the owner of the Hotailors brand, which offers a comprehensive tool for booking business trips, has secured EUR 23 million from DC24 ASI. The amount raised will be used for further development of the company on international markets (USA, MENA), the launch of new products (insurance and financial), and the rebranding process of Hotailors to WorkTrips.com.

Aston Particle Technologies, a company which has developed a novel dry powder coating technology, has completed a £1 million funding round led by DSW Ventures. The investment into Aston Particle Technologies (APT), a spin-out from Aston University, was led by DSW Ventures alongside Aston University and an Aston alumnus.

Gain.pro, the market intelligence and software innovator delivering a wholly new level of insight into private companies, has reached a landmark $10 million in investment following its latest funding round. The injection of new funding has come from a combination of the original group of investors, including a group of leaders in the industry, and the investment arm of a leading European family office plus the Gain.pro founders and management team and employees.

Active asset manager J O Hambro Capital Management (JOHCM) has appointed Nikolaos Dimakis as senior data scientist. Dimakis joins from Federated Hermes where he was a Quantitative Analyst and joins JOHCM to support Head of Investments Andrew Parry.  Dimakis’ role will focus on managing and developing tools to utilise data better in order to support investment teams in JOHCM and its impact investing arm Regnan.

BVNK, the crypto-powered payments and banking platform for businesses, has secured $40 million in Series A funding to drive growth as it brings traditional finance and crypto together. The investment will fuel BVNK’s launch into new markets, including the USA, accelerate its acquisition of regulatory licences, and support the expansion of product capabilities. The fundraising round was led by Tiger Global alongside other notable investors including The Raba Partnership, Avenir, Kingsway Capital, Nordstar, Concentric, and Base Capital.  Angel investors included the founders of Anchorage Digital, Coinlist, Eco.com and TrueLayer; Microsoft’s ex-head of strategy and former Stripe and Jump Trading executives.

Lighthouse, the company building the open metaverse navigation engine, has raised a $7 million seed round co-led by Accel, BlockTower and Animoca Brands. The round includes participation from White Star Capital, Sparkle Ventures, Gemini Frontier Fund, The Graph core developers StreamingFast, Tiny VC and angels including Patricio Worthalter (founder, POAP),  Ryan Selkis (founder, Messari), Alex Svanevik (founder, Nansen), Thibault Launay (founder, Exclusible) and other high profile Web3 investors.