Financial guarantees from the National Wealth Fund and UK Export Finance have facilitated over £1 billion in financing from a consortium of international banks, including HSBC, Standard Chartered, BBVA, SMBC and Societe Generale.
The investment will fund construction and operations of AESC’s cutting-edge gigafactory, creating more than 1,000 direct jobs.
This significant transaction will strengthen the UK’s domestic battery manufacturing capabilities and contribute to the nation’s net zero ambitions.
The UK government, through the National Wealth Fund (NWF) and UK Export Finance (UKEF), has successfully secured in excess of £1 billion of investment for battery manufacturer AESC’s second gigafactory in Sunderland. This substantial financial commitment will bolster the UK’s battery production capacity whilst simultaneously generating employment opportunities, enhancing skills development and stimulating economic growth across the North-East of England.
“This investment in Sunderland will not only further innovation and accelerate our move to more sustainable transport, but it will also deliver much-needed high quality, well-paid jobs to the North East, putting more money in people’s pockets,” said Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves.
In this pioneering transaction, the NWF and UKEF have provided crucial financial guarantees* that have unlocked £680 million in financing from a syndicate of commercial banks, including Standard Chartered, HSBC, SMBC Bank International Plc, Societe Generale and BBVA. These guarantees are instrumental in facilitating a broader project financing package valued at more than £1 billion.
Upon completion, AESC Plant 2 will make a considerable contribution to the decarbonisation of Britain’s automotive sector, with initial capacity designed to power approximately 100,000 electric vehicles (EVs) annually. The facility is expected to employ upwards of 1,000 individuals.
At full operational capacity, the plant will be capable of providing up to 15.8GWh of battery supply, representing a nearly six-fold increase on current UK gigafactory capacity. AESC’s original 1.8GWh plant, which commenced production in 2012, holds the distinction of being Europe’s first and Britain’s only EV battery factory for more than a decade.
Bain Capital has revealed it is considering a potential offer for AIM-quoted Craneware (LON: CRW), although it is still early days. The Craneware share price has jumped 11% to £22.75 and that is 27% higher over the week. The market capitalisation is more than £800m.
The all-time share price high is £35.85, and it was reached in September 2018. Pre-tax profit has more than doubled since then.
Scotland-based Craneware provides accounting and billing software to US hospitals. The transition to the cloud-based Trisus product is helping to improve profitability. The strong cash flow of the business is a major attraction to Bain Capital – even after capitalising $18m of development spending this year.
Interim revenues were 10% higher at $100m and pre-tax profit improved from $17m to $20.6m. There was $57.2m in cash generated from operating activities. The interim dividend was raised by 4% to 13.5p/share.
In the year to June 2025, Craneware is forecast to generate revenues of $206.8m and pre-tax profit of $44.1m, which excludes acquisition amortisation. Net cash could reach $37.8m by the end of June 2025. The total dividend should be at least 29.5p/share.
Next year, pre-tax profit could reach $49.2m and net cash could be $63.1m. The shares are trading on around 24 times 2025-26 earnings, although this figure is affected by the exchange rate.
Mirriad Advertising (LON: MIRI) raised a further £100,000 via a retail offer at 0.01p/share. That takes the money raised to £1.6m. The share price recovered 26.1% to 0.0145p but it has still nearly halved over the past week.
Energy as a service provider eEnergy Group (LON: EAAS) has entered a partnership with US-based energy as a service provider Redaptive Inc, which will provide up to £100m to support new projects. eEnergy will project manage and deliver LED and solar on behalf of Redaptive customer base in Europe. These projects will be fully funded and eEnergy cash flow will improve. The current NatWest facility can only be used for public projects. The share price increased 22.2% to 6.05p.
Staff provider Staffline (LON: STAF) has won a new contract with food and drink logistics provider Culina that could be worth £300m over three years. This should commence in the summer. There will be initial implementation costs in 2025. Panmure Liberum has raised its 2025 pre-tax profit forecast from £5.3m to £6m. The 2026 estimate is increased from £5.7m to £8.3m. The share price is 15.4% to 31.4p, which is less than six times prospective 2026 earnings.
Solid State (LON: SOLI) has received a follow-on order for IOT technology worth $5.2m from a US customer. The technology is for smart vending machines. The delivery of the contract will continue to the end of calendar 2026. The share price improved 2.7% to 190p.
FALLERS
Mosman Oil and Gas (LON: MSMN) has raised £1.25m at 0.045p/share and could raise up to £300,000 more via a retail offer. The cash will finance helium projects in the US and Australia. Yesterday, the company announced that the Barclay-TH 295 106A well on the Billy Goat lease area flowed gas and the flow rate was 63mcf/day. Samples are being analysed to assess the composition of the gas. The share price slipped 20.5% to 0.0485p.
Shares in oil and gas producer Empyrean Energy (LON: EME) are falling for the third day in a row following the decision to plug and abandon the Wilson River-1 well. The share price fell a further 14.1% to 0.0275p and is down nearly three-quarters on the week.
Sunda Energy (LON: SNDA) has issued 3.13 billion shares at 0.03995p each on conversion of loan notes. There have also been 1.8 billion warrants issued, and they have an exercise price of 0.051935p. The share price slid 8.6% to 0.0425p.
Toys and hobbies supplier Character Group (LON: CCT) warns that the outlook for the second half is uncertain with worries about tariffs affecting customer decisions. Interim revenues declined 8% to £53m, but pre-tax profit was 2% higher at £2.11m. Net cash of £16.3m is nearly two-fifths of the market capitalisation. Allenby has withdrawn forecasts. The share price dipped 5.88% to 240p.
The FTSE 100 gained in early trade on Friday and looked set to close the week out on a high as European shares rallied amid rising investor sentiment.
London’s leading index was 0.4% higher at the time of writing as the German DAX added another 0.7%.
“European shares are largely holding onto yesterday’s gains, which saw Germany’s DAX reach a record high, with several other European indices closing at levels not seen since just before the Great Financial Crisis,” said Derren Nathan, head of equity research, Hargreaves Lansdown.
“It’s too early to call the end of US exceptionalism but there are signs that investors are looking to diversify.”
While there may be an element of rotation into European shares, it’s certainly not at the expense of US stocks that also pushed higher yesterday as a wave of optimism lifted all boats and took the S&P 500 further into positive territory on the year.
“The S&P 500 index extended its impressive winning streak to a seventh consecutive session, closing yesterday with a gain of nearly 0.41%, reflecting a significant improvement in investor sentiment,” said Linh Tran, Market Analyst at XS.com.
“The rally was primarily driven by renewed optimism over monetary policy easing and positive signals from U.S.–China trade relations, which have long been a major source of market uncertainty.”
FTSE 100 movers
AstraZeneca was the biggest contributor to the FTSE 100 gains in terms of the number of points, with a 1.7% gain as investors picked the stock up after recent selling driven by tariff concerns. GSK shares rose 1.6%.
St James’s Place was the FTSE 100 top riser after JPMorgan analysts bumped their price target up to 1,310p, maintaining its overweight rating.
Land Securities fell 1.6% despite releasing fairly respectable final results underscored by 5% rental growth.
“Land Securities was the biggest FTSE 100 faller despite reassuring investors that it hadn’t seen an impact of economic uncertainty on customer demand or investment markets,” explained Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.
Housebuilders Taylor Wimpey, Persimmon, Barratt, and Redrow were all flat or marginally lower. The sector has gained substantially since the Trump-induced volatility and has begun to flatline in recent sessions.
Mining shares were also lower and acted to offset gains elsewhere in the FTSE 100. Glencore and Antofagasta were both down less than 1%.
Fresh research from analysts at asset manager Aberdeen reveals that the UK small companies valuation discount has narrowed amid an onslaught of takeover interest from overseas entities keen to capitalise on the low valuations of exciting UK companies.
Aberdeen’s research from February 2025 had identified UK small caps as the most undervalued stocks globally when comparing current 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratios against their 10-year averages. UK small caps were trading at a steep 23.4% discount to their historical average, compared to just a 3.2% discount for global smaller companies overall.
However, recent months have seen this valuation gap narrow considerably for UK small caps, with the discount shrinking to 14.6%.
Meanwhile, the MSCI ACWI Small Cap index—representing global smaller companies—has seen its discount widen to 30.3%. According to the latest data through April 30, 2025, smaller companies in Asia (excluding Japan) now face the largest regional discount at 42.9% below their historical average.
One of the driving forces behind the narrowing of the UK smaller company valuation discount is the £15 billion worth of bids for smaller companies recorded so far in 2025, mostly from overseas corporate entities.
Small and mid-caps have received the lion’s share of the bid interest. Of the 15 transactions announced in 2025 year-to-date, six were for FTSE 250 companies, four for FTSE Smallcap firms and four for AIM companies.
“The UK continues to be a happy hunting ground for both corporate and private equity bidders, due to low valuations and willing sellers,” said Amanda Yeaman, co-manager of the abrdn UK Smaller Companies Fund and the abrdn UK Smaller Companies Growth Trust plc.
“It is notable that corporates have been the main acquirors, which shows the attractiveness of UK companies and suggests confidence in the economic outlook and the interest rate environment. Currently there are willing buyers (attracted by the valuations available and the probability of a successful conclusion) and willing sellers. The scale of M&A and lack of IPOs is resulting in reduction in the number of UK-listed growth companies, illustrating the tension between the clear value in the market, but the shrinking asset pool.”
The shares of AO World (LON.AO.) are beginning to rise again ahead of the major electrical retailer announcing its Final Results for its year to end-March 2025.
We have already had guidance that the group’s results will show positively, while I believe that they could well show a confident view of the current trading year when the company releases its figures on Wednesday 18th June.
The Business
The Bolton-based group is the UK's most trusted major electrical retailer, with a mission to be the destination for electricals.
Its strategy is to create value by offerin...
Novorise is gaining serious momentum — and investors are taking notice. With 118+ investors already on board, our Crowdcube campaign is making waves as we build the UK’s most scalable and affordable alternative to single-use plastic packaging.
Backed by £48 million in government contracts across TUCO (£30M) and Scotland Excel (£18M), Novorise is no longer in startup mode — we’re scaling fast. We supply to councils, NHS boards, food services, restaurants and takeaways, with compliance-ready, compostable, and recyclable packaging. Now, with only a few days left to invest, this is your window to be part of the UK’s green packaging shift.
🏆 And it’s not just our numbers doing the talking — we’ve been recognised as finalists for both the Green Business Award and New Business Award, with results announced soon.
What’s in it for you? • 30% EIS tax relief • Entry into a high-growth market • A front-row seat to our £61.8M Year 3 projection
Funds raised will help us fulfil large-scale contracts, expand distribution, and invest in R&D — including our patent-in-pipeline tree-free bags, plastic-free cups, and CO₂-cutting lids.
Sustainability is no longer a niche; it’s a necessity. With investor confidence rising, changing ISA allowances, and regulatory shifts like EPR accelerating demand, Novorise sits at the intersection of innovation and opportunity. Every pound invested helps scale a cleaner, greener future.
Your investment isn’t just about returns — it’s about being part of a meaningful movement that transforms how we consume and dispose of everyday products. From tackling plastic pollution to empowering conscious procurement, Novorise is driving real impact.
📅 Join our final webinar with the co-founders on Sunday, 18 May at 17:00 BST: 👉 Eventbrite 📈 View the pitch
Don’t miss out — invest in the future of sustainable packaging before it’s too late.
eEnergy Group has announced a significant partnership with US-based Redaptive Inc. worth up to £100 million to fund energy efficiency projects across the UK.
The arrangement establishes eEnergy as a key delivery partner for Redaptive in the British market.
Under the deal, Redaptive will finance approved customer projects spanning all client sectors, whilst eEnergy will manage operations and handle warranty and service obligations. This collaboration leverages eEnergy’s strong presence in large-scale LED and solar installations to accelerate Redaptive’s UK expansion.
Denver-headquartered Redaptive, established in 2015, brings substantial experience in funding and installing energy-saving equipment for major clients, including T-Mobile and Iron Mountain.
The agreement provides eEnergy with a base to expand its operations across both public and private markets. Unlike their existing NatWest facility, which serves only public sector projects, the Redaptive partnership opens up both the public and private sectors. Perhaps most importantly, eEnergy will receive full payment upon project completion, substantially improving cash flow.
“This is a game-changing partnership,” said Harvey Sinclair, eEnergy CEO.
“Redaptive’s decision to provide up to £100m unlocks a massive growth opportunity for eEnergy, giving us the firepower to deliver more funded decarbonisation projects, faster, and across every sector. As their lead UK delivery partner, we’re not just accessing capital – we’re joining forces with a global player to deliver scale. This enables us to accelerate our mission, remove financial barriers, and bring clean energy solutions to more organisations on their path to Net Zero than ever before.”
Tekcapital has announced that its portfolio company, Guident, has entered the robotics market with a fresh contract win.
Guident has secured its first contract with the Boca Raton Innovation Campus (BRiC), the sprawling 1.7-million-square-foot office complex formerly housing IBM’s research and development operations.
Today’s WatchBot contract win comes shortly after the launch of Guident’s autonomous shuttle in West Palm Beach, demonstrating the breadth of real-world applications for Guident’s AV technology.
The Boca Raton Innovation Campus partnership centres on deploying Guident’s WatchBot, an autonomous surveillance and inspection robot. Developed in partnership with Star Robotics, the WatchBot surveillance system delivers real-time monitoring capabilities, employs AI-powered analytics and handles automated security functions.
“We are proud to partner with BRiC to deliver cutting-edge autonomous solutions that redefine campus management,” said Harald Braun, Chairman & CEO of Guident.
“WatchBot demonstrates Guident’s commitment to innovation and safety, and we are thrilled to contribute to BRiC’s vision of creating a world-class environment for technology and life sciences tenants. Together, we are setting a new standard for operational efficiency and intelligent campus management.”
Autonomous vehicles have clocked millions of miles on public roads. Yet, even the most sophisticated software encounters difficulties when reality presents unexpected scenarios. Perhaps a construction sign toppled by wind, a traffic officer gesturing with their hands, or a dog dashing across four lanes of traffic.
Rather than grounding entire fleets until algorithms master every unusual situation, the autonomous vehicle industry is increasingly relying on remote human operators who monitor driverless cars from a distance and, when called into action, take temporary control within seconds. This practice, known as teleoperation, is rapidly becoming a strategic cornerstone for safer, more resilient and more publicly trusted autonomy.
Edge Cases Lay Bare Autonomy’s Limits
California’s 2024 disengagement data, the most closely watched measurement in the sector, reveals how frequently AVs still require assistance.
Waymo recorded one disengagement every 9,793 miles, whilst newer shuttle operators such as May Mobility needed an intervention approximately every 0.66 miles. These figures make two points unmistakably clear: edge cases remain abundant, and human backups are essential.
Number of miles driven per disengagement in California from December 2023 to November 2024
Teleoperation: A Real-Time Safety Valet
When an AV’s perception system hesitates, a remote operator can intervene—steering around an unmarked pothole or communicating with a traffic marshal—before returning control to the onboard computer.
This human-in-the-loop model significantly reduces the risk of a vehicle freezing or making a poor decision, reducing both collision risk and tariff disruption.
Moreover, a single operator can oversee dozens of vehicles because interventions are infrequent and brief. Such scalability means teleoperation adds minimal cost relative to the safety benefits, preserving the business case for autonomous ride-hailing and various AV service use cases.
Enhanced Safety Through Multi-Modal Communications
Contemporary teleoperation centres don’t simply maintain a video feed—they employ sophisticated communication systems that continuously monitor vehicle health, environmental conditions, and passenger status. These systems provide operators with comprehensive situational awareness through:
Real-time vehicle telemetry data including speed, acceleration, and component diagnostics
Multi-angle video feeds with depth perception and enhanced night vision capabilities
Spatial audio mapping that allows operators to “hear” the vehicle’s surroundings
AI-powered anomaly detection that pre-emptively flags potential issues before they escalate
The bidirectional nature of these communication systems enables immediate intervention during emergencies—operators can directly communicate with passengers, activate emergency protocols, or coordinate with first responders—all whilst maintaining positive control of the vehicle.
Redundant Communication Pathways: No Single Point of Failure
Leading AV companies now implement triple-redundant communication networks for teleoperation: a primary high-bandwidth 5G connection for normal operations, a secondary LTE/4G fallback network with optimised compression, and a tertiary satellite link for emergency connectivity in cellular dead zones.
This layered approach ensures that vehicles remain connected to operators even under challenging network conditions. When combined with advanced predictive buffering techniques that anticipate network problems, these systems remain operational with less than 0.001% communication downtime.
Confidence Builder for Regulators and Riders
Regulators view teleoperation as a tangible extra layer of safety insurance; several U.S. states now require or explicitly allow remote monitoring in commercial driverless deployments, especially when a safety driver is not present. Passengers, meanwhile, find comfort in knowing a trained human can step in if the robotic driver becomes confused. In consumer focus groups, willingness to ride increases markedly when teleoperation is mentioned as a safety net, a factor that may prove decisive in mainstream adoption.
The US is streets ahead of the UK in terms of AV deployment progress, although the UK is set to roll out self-driving vehicles in 2026.
Regulatory Frameworks Embracing Human Oversight
The regulatory landscape for teleoperation has matured significantly, with 21 states now incorporating specific teleoperation provisions in their AV legislation. The NHTSA’s 2025 AV Safety Framework explicitly endorses teleoperation as a key safety enhancement for Level 4 autonomous deployments, establishing minimum performance standards for:
Mandatory operator certification and ongoing training
These clear regulatory guidelines have accelerated commercial deployments whilst maintaining strong safety margins. Industry consensus suggests this regulatory certainty has shortened commercialisation timelines by approximately 18-24 months.
Glass-to-Glass Latency: Every Millisecond Counts
For teleoperation to work effectively, the video loop from the vehicle’s cameras to the operator’s screen must be nearly instantaneous.
Industry best practice is sub-100 millisecond “glass-to-glass” latency. Beyond approximately 250 ms, human steering accuracy declines materially and makes remote control useless.
A 2025 5G field trial averaged 202 ms end-to-end delay, a 2024 campus-network demonstration clocked 136 ms, and a controlled laboratory study achieved 88.9 ms. Older LTE experiments hovered well above 200 ms, highlighting why next-generation connectivity and aggressive video-pipeline tuning are mission-critical.
The Advanced Human Interface: Enhancing Operator Performance
Remote operation centres now utilise cutting-edge human factors research to maximise operator effectiveness whilst minimising fatigue and cognitive load.
Key innovations include AR-enhanced interfaces that overlay predictive path information and highlight potential hazards, feedback systems that provide operators with simulated road feel and vehicle dynamics, adaptive workload management that dynamically adjusts operator-to-vehicle ratios based on real-time complexity metrics, and physiological monitoring systems that detect early signs of fatigue or attention lapses.
These human-centred design approaches have reduced operator error rates by 67% whilst extending effective work sessions by up to 3 hours compared to earlier systems.
Passenger Experience: The Human Touch in Robotic Rides
Modern teleoperation systems prioritise passenger communication and comfort. When a vehicle requires remote assistance, passengers receive an immediate notification via in-vehicle screens and audio, whilst the remote operator can directly communicate through the vehicle’s audio system.
AI-driven emotion recognition can alert operators to passenger distress, and custom communication protocols address specific passenger needs, such as those of children, the elderly or disabled individuals.
This human connection transforms what could be an unsettling experience into a reassuring demonstration of the system’s safety architecture. Market research indicates that passengers who experience a smooth teleoperation handover report higher satisfaction scores than those whose journeys never required intervention, suggesting the visible safety net actually enhances the experience.
The Flywheel Effect: Faster Learning, Faster Deployment
Each remote intervention does more than resolve a single challenging moment; it generates a labelled data set that engineers can channel back into training. Over time, the fleet encounters fewer repetitions of the same edge case because the AI has learned from every human-assisted rescue. This virtuous cycle enables companies to scale services sooner, complete with human safety net, whilst systematically driving the disengagement rate ever closer to zero.
Catalyst, Not Crutch
For many in the industry, the long-term goal remains full self-reliant autonomy. Yet, if the industry waits for perfection, mass deployment could be derailed, and even if perfection were miraculously achieved, edge cases can easily transform from electro-mechanical errors to problems dealing with occupant health status or security. Teleoperation offers a pragmatic bridge: AVs can serve riders today under real-world conditions while a human guardian angel silently neutralises most of the rough edges. As WIRED recently quipped, remote driving may be the “sneaky shortcut” that finally enables robotaxis to scale.
In essence, teleoperation is the human safety net that allows autonomous vehicles to run before they can walk—and, paradoxically, may be the fastest path to teaching them to stride confidently on their own.
