Business News Round Up (04/08/2026)
North West attracts more equity investment than any UK region outside London in first half
The North West has overtaken other UK regions outside London to secure a £1.2bn investment boom, according to research by Barclays. The Barclays Regional Investment Map reveals that the North West attracted £1.19bn in equity investment during the first half of 2026 – up 89 per cent compared with H2 2025. The region attracted more investment than any UK region outside London, underlining the strength of its innovation economy and investor confidence in northern growth businesses. Growth was led by high-value industrial strategy sectors, particularly digital and technologies, where North West businesses secured more than £1.01bn in fundraising during H1 2026. Professional and business services also performed strongly, attracting £122.1m, while life sciences secured £65.6m and financial services attracted £37.9m. The North West is now home to more than 115,000 businesses across the eight innovation intensive sectors in the Industrial Strategy dataset.
Nationwide partners with Female Founders Rise to help unlock potential for women entrepreneurs
Nationwide announces it has become the sole banking partner of Female Founders Rise (FFR), one of the UK’s largest communities helping female entrepreneurs and non-binary founders build stronger, more profitable businesses. The partnership aims to strengthen support for FFR’s 12,000-plus members as they grow and scale their businesses, bringing together Nationwide’s commitment to support businesses and local communities with FFR’s mission to support early-stage female founders, from idea through to their first million. The Rise Report, one of the largest grassroots studies of female entrepreneurship in the UK, found that up to £310 billion of new value could be added to the UK economy if women started and scaled businesses at the same rate as men1. The partnership comes ahead of Nationwide launching its own business banking proposition for SMEs next year. Currently, it operates business banking through its Virgin Money brand after it acquired the bank in 2024.
UK Government investments suffered data breach
UK Government Investments, the public body at the helm of state investments, disclosed that it had suffered a data breach that left private information accessible to the public for almost 40 hours. The agency is now being pushed to improve its security after “high-level management information” was left accessible in a data breach, exposing the personal details of more than 50 government officials in the breach. The investment body manages taxpayer’s interests in a range of companies and is most known in the UK for bailing out Lloyds Banking Group and the Royal Bank of Scotland following the 2008 market crash. The group pinned the blame on an internal incident, saying a staff member – who remains unnamed – did not follow security protocols.
https://www.digit.fyi/uk-government-investments-suffered-data-breach
Thriving innovation cluster highlights regeneration success in Glasgow’s East End
Three businesses in the same building in the east end of Glasgow have been named in the Sunday Times Fast Growth 50, underlining the impact of regeneration efforts by Clyde Gateway in attracting innovative, high-growth businesses to the area. Utopi, Acumen Cyber, and Morris & Spottiswood are all based at EastWorks in Dalmarnock, a project spearheaded by regeneration company Clyde Gateway. They were all named in the Sunday Times list which required an average annual growth in revenue of at least 20 per cent across the two most recent financial years. Scottish Government minister, Tom Arthur, visited the businesses to see the impact of place-based investment in supporting business expansion and job creation.