England is full of energy with Netomnia, YouFibre, Blend Network and RegGenome all picking up tech funding.
Netomnia, a provider of full fibre broadband infrastructure, and internet service provider YouFibre have secured £295 million in new funding led by DigitalBridge Investment Management.
Development finance lender Blend Network has secured £120 million committed capital from a consortium of large family offices as it targets mid-size property developers in the UK.
Regulatory Genome Development (aka RegGenome), a commercial spin-out from the University of Cambridge, has announced the completion of a $6 million (£4.6 million) seed funding round led by Evolution Equity Partners.
Netomnia and YouFibre Keep on Rollin’
The funding follows on from November 2021 when Netomnia and YouFibre got £123 million to roll out full-fibre broadband across the nation.
In this latest round, Netomnia says DigitalBridge’s equity investment will come alongside follow-on commitments from existing shareholders Soho Square Capital and Advencap.
Founded by CEO Jeremy Chelot in 2019, Netomnia provides a multi-gigabit broadband network across the UK. The group has achieved more than 130,000 premises passed since rollout commenced in 2020. Recent developments include rollouts in Maidstone, Guildford, Darlington, Carlisle, Gravesend, Barry (South Wales) and Hamilton (South Lanarkshire).
Chelot notes: “We are thrilled to partner with DigitalBridge and benefit from their support and industry expertise as we work towards our target of one million premises passed in the next two years.”
The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2022, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.
Netomnia is based in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire. YouFibre is headquartered in London.
The Right Blend
London-based Blend Network says the funding lines come three months after it closed an undisclosed equity funding round.
The capital committed comes from six large family offices, “illustrating how Blend has heavily invested in digitising its lending process for institutional investors and family offices”, which now make up more than 90% of the company’s funding base.
Blend’s long-standing investors include Publicis Groupe Chairman Maurice Levy, OakNorth Bank Chairman and former Barclays Vice Chairman Cyrus Ardalan, former Glencore executive Nico Paraskevas, and Jean-Philippe Blochet, co-founder of Brevan Howard.
Blend was founded in 2018. The company says it has doubled its lending volumes annually since 2019.
In November 2021, eWeek UK interviewed Roxana Mohammadian-Molina, Blend’s Chief Strategy Officer. She discussed the lack of strong role models, perseverance and the way to advance women’s financial health.
The Laughing RegGenome
According to RegGenome, the round included participation from AlbionVC, Cambridge Enterprise and Mastercard. Richard Seewald, Managing Partner of Evolution Equity Partners, will join RegGenome’s board of directors.
RegGenome explains that it provides structured machine-readable regulatory content that is powered by AI-based textual information extraction techniques.
Seewald says: “Deepening regulatory intelligence and digitising compliance and risk management functions utilising machine learning and interoperability with cybersecurity, fintech and ESG presents tremendous opportunity for the company.”
RegGenome was founded in 2020. Together with Cambridge Judge Business School, they are founding members of the Regulatory Genome Project.
