The FSE Group

Enjoyable event with Dorset Chamber held at the stunning Coastland College - Kingston Maurward. Out and about on behalf of The FSE Group across the South West looking to continue supporting those business with funding solutions. If you are a business with clear growth plans and would like to discuss them then please feel free to contact me. The FSE Group British Business Bank

Congratulations to Connekt EV Chargingg and Phlo two businesses we've supported that feature in the inaugural Sunday Times Scotland Fast 50 👏 🚘 Edinburgh-based Connekt EV Charging received a £250,000 investment from The FSE Group through the Investment Fund for Scotland in 2024 to support the development of three rapid charging hubs. 🧑⚕️ Glasgow-based Phlo has transformed access to healthcare through its digital platform, bringing consultations, prescriptions and pharmacy services together in one place. Both businesses are helping drive innovation and growth across Scotland, and we're proud to have backed their ambitions

Thank you Evolve for the invite to your social this evening. The ice cream that was kindly provided was absolutely spot on given the hot weather! As always a great opportunity to catch up with plenty of the local business community. Working at The FSE Group it is always a pleasure to talk and explain how we are able to continue to assist plenty of local businesses with flexible funding to support growth. Feel free to reach out if you would like to find out more. Warren Munson Amelia Atkins Amy Enright David Mutton Rachel Hadfield Jeremy Channon John Murray James Bingham 🌲 Jo Hjalmas Oscar Hjalmas Laura Trapnell Hatty Fawcett Caroline Slade karen Mroczek

I recently volunteered for the Reading Tech Cluster (RTC) Summer Pitch Event with my brother Daniel Handley. Over 120 local founders, tech community members, advisers and investors in the room. The FSE Group is a sponsor of the RTC. The eight pitches were fascinating. A really diverse range of technology on show. I found these two very interesting given my interest in music and AI: SoundBridge (Justice Asibe, founder) - Professional infrastructure for audio creators. It describes itself as "LinkedIn for audio creators". This concept clicked with me straight away - It supports audio creators in promoting their work through planned events and promotional posts, with curated feeds so fans can discover and support them - Frictionless by design: live tipping built directly into the platform Metatalent.AI (Rehan Haque, founder) - A platform measuring the ROI of both human and AI agent productivity - Increasingly relevant as more frontier AI tools shift to credit based billing: costs can rise significantly, so the value of every delegated AI task needs to be justified - Microsoft's Copilot Cowork is a recent example: credit based billing has meant Microsoft has had to add cost management controls at an organisation, team and user level, on top of existing monthly per-user costs The day wrapped up with the Lunicorn Festival Summer Party at Club 106, at the Reading Football Stadium, with local and up and coming DJs on the decks. #readingtechcluster #TheFSEGroup #rtc

Megadeals drove an equity boom in the South West in 2025 🚀 Our Small Business Equity Tracker 2026 report shows investment into smaller businesses in the region more than doubled to £687m, rising 104% from 2024.  🎓 The report also highlights the strength of UK spinout companies. Over the last five years, the Bank has backed more than 25% of local spinouts, up from less than 5% between 2016 and 2020. This includes University of Bristol spin-out QLM Technology in Torbay, which received £1m from our South West Investment Fund in 2025 to support the development and commercial scaling of its advanced methane monitoring technology. "It's encouraging to see the acceleration in support for spin-outs. Building on our research strengths is vital to the UK's long-term economic growth and international competitiveness,” said Edward Tellwright, Local Growth Team Director.

Great to have joined colleagues Robert Ward and Matt Browning in Poole yesterday, representing The FSE Group at our joint event with SWIG Finance. We heard from Benjamin Gibbons at Circular11, who shared his journey through growth funding and business expansion utilising funding from The FSE Group and SWIG Finance. It was also a valuable opportunity to meet business advisers, solicitors, accountants and support organisations from across the South West. If you're an ambitious, high growth SME looking for funding support, we'd love to hear from you. Thanks to Sam Clark from We Are Trailblazer Ltd for organising this event and Holly Lagden from Dorset Business Mentors for sharing valuable information about business mentoring in Dorset.