Business

UK property technology platform Dwelly has raised £69m ($94m) in combined equity and debt funding to expand its AI-driven roll-up of independent letting agencies across Britain.

The capital raise includes a £32m equity round led by General Catalyst, with participation from Begin Capital and S16VC, alongside a £37m debt facility provided by Trinity Capital. The funding will support further acquisitions as Dwelly seeks to consolidate the UK’s fragmented rental market.

Dwelly operates an AI-enabled roll-up model, acquiring independent agencies and integrating them onto its technology platform. The UK residential rental market generates more than £100bn in annual rent roll and around £10bn in commissions, yet remains highly fragmented, with roughly 20,000 firms operating nationwide. The top 100 account for less than 30 per cent of the country’s 5.5 million rental properties.

Since launching its acquisition strategy in 2024, Dwelly has bought eight agencies and now manages over £200m in gross merchandise value (GMV). The company says it has surpassed 10,000 properties under management, placing it among the UK’s 15 largest letting agencies in under two years.

Co-founder and chief executive Ilya Drozdov said the group’s ambition is to build an end-to-end rental platform that evolves into a fully transactional marketplace, supported by an integrated fintech layer for rent collection and ancillary services.

Dwelly’s platform automates key stages of the rental process, including tenant screening, contract execution, payments, maintenance coordination and pricing adjustments between tenancies.

The company claims its system increases the average number of validated offers per property from one or two under a traditional model to around 10. It says this has reduced average letting times by roughly one-third and introduced a more transparent “best offer wins” model aimed at reducing bias in tenant selection.

Maintenance processes are also being automated. Dwelly uses 24/7 tenant chatbots, automated request triage and AI-driven tracking of maintenance providers. In a sector where maintenance requests can take up to 50 days to resolve, the company says it has already cut resolution times by 33 per cent, with further reductions expected.

General Catalyst partner Zeynep Yavuz described Dwelly’s approach as a “systems-level AI architecture” capable of transforming one of the UK’s most operationally intensive service sectors into a scalable software-led model.

The funding will allow Dwelly to continue acquiring agencies while preserving their branding and local client relationships, offering what it describes as a transparent exit route for agency owners.

By increasing the number of properties under management, Dwelly also gains access to more data to refine its AI models, reinforcing what it argues is a compounding advantage in automation and operational efficiency.

As institutional investors show growing interest in applying AI to traditional service industries, Dwelly’s rapid expansion signals a broader shift in the UK rental market towards consolidation, digital infrastructure and data-led property management.

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Dwelly secures £69m to accelerate AI-led rental marketplace expansion

The government has convened a new taskforce to unlock up to £1bn in additional lending for small businesses, pressing Britain’s major banks to commit fresh capital to alternative community lenders.

Ministers are seeking “concrete commitments” over the next five years to expand funding for the community development financial institution (CDFI) sector, not-for-profit lenders that support businesses unable to secure loans from mainstream banks.

The initiative follows a review which found that many small firms are being pushed towards high-cost borrowing because of rising rejection rates, regulatory complexity and broker practices. Borrowing costs for some companies were described as “prohibitively high”.

CDFIs lent £141m to around 5,000 businesses in 2024, according to Responsible Finance. Of that, £82m went to roughly 1,000 small and micro businesses, while £59m supported around 4,000 start-ups.

The taskforce aims to scale lending to small firms from £82m to £500m over five years, contributing to an overall £1bn boost in available finance.

Blair McDougall, the small business minister (pictured), said the initiative brings together “local knowledge and relationships” with financial backing from the British Business Bank and major lenders.

The group will be chaired by Bob Annibale, chair of Big Issue Changing Lives and Grameen America. He said one of the first priorities would be encouraging banks to redirect rejected applicants to CDFIs rather than leaving them without options.

Loan rejection rates from high street banks have climbed to around 40 per cent, according to the British Business Bank, compared with 5–10 per cent in the 1990s.

Several lenders have already committed funds. In 2024, Lloyds Banking Group announced a £43m investment in three CDFIs via its Community Investment Enterprise Fund, while JP Morgan provided £4m to strengthen CDFI operational capacity.

Industry figures say that alongside fresh capital, CDFIs will need investment in staffing and technology to manage higher volumes of lending.

The move reflects Labour’s pledge to improve access to finance for small firms rejected by mainstream banks and comes as ministers seek to stimulate growth among smaller enterprises facing elevated borrowing costs.

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Taskforce aims to unlock £1bn in small business lending

Reform UK has pledged to abolish the government’s Renters’ Rights Act if it wins the next general election, describing the legislation as part of a raft of regulations that are “hindering growth, investment and prosperity”.

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025, due to come into force in May, represents one of the most significant overhauls of England’s private rented sector in decades. It abolishes Section 21 “no-fault” evictions, limits rent increases to once per year at market rate, strengthens tenants’ rights to request pets and bans discrimination against families with children or those receiving benefits.

Reform’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, said the party would introduce a “Great Repeal Bill” aimed at reversing what he called “well-intentioned but damaging” rules across multiple sectors. Speaking in Birmingham, he said new property rental regulations should be scrapped alongside employment reforms and environmental mandates.

“Let’s ditch daft regulations,” Tice said. “Scrap new property rental rules, all well intentioned but they kill jobs, hinder growth and investment. This will help lower inflation and bring down bills.”

The announcement has reignited debate over how best to balance tenant security with landlord confidence and housing supply.

Patricia Ogunfeibo, founder of tenant2owner, said repealing the Act could generate further instability in a market already grappling with political uncertainty.

“Scrapping the Renters’ Rights Act may sound attractive from a growth perspective,” she said, “but constant policy reversals create instability for both landlords and tenants. Retrospective changes and disregard for existing contractual arrangements already undermine confidence. Repealing the Act outright could intensify that uncertainty.”

She added that renters should not rely solely on shifting political agendas to secure their housing future, urging more focus on pathways to home ownership.

Simon Bridgland, a broker at Charwin Private Clients, suggested that full abolition was unlikely in practice, arguing that certain elements of the legislation, particularly measures targeting poor housing standards, had broad support.

“I can see more dilution than abolition,” he said. “The Act does introduce positive changes for tenants in terms of living conditions and accountability. The difficulty lies in how aggressively some of these standards have been implemented, particularly around energy efficiency.”

Landlords, he noted, face rising compliance costs, tighter tax treatment and increasing regulatory burdens. “Profit margins have already been squeezed. If incentives disappear entirely, fewer landlords will remain in the market and that reduces supply.”

Other analysts cautioned that repealing tenant protections alone would not address the structural shortage of housing.

David Stirling, an independent financial adviser at Mint Wealth, said Britain’s housing crisis stems primarily from insufficient supply.

“The real question is whether scrapping the Act would increase housing stock,” he said. “Without a meaningful boost in new builds and social housing, weakening tenant rights risks creating a more insecure rental market without making rents cheaper.”

Stirling argued that successive governments have failed to tackle long-term supply constraints, instead oscillating between landlord-focused and tenant-focused reforms.

Official data show the private rented sector remains a crucial part of the housing system, accommodating millions of households. However, landlord exits have accelerated in recent years amid tax changes and higher borrowing costs, contributing to reduced rental availability in some regions.

Michelle Lawson, director at Lawson Financial, supported Reform’s position, claiming the legislation could discourage landlords from maintaining or expanding portfolios.

“It will lessen housing stock, making rents more expensive and reducing choice,” she said. “When supply shrinks, landlords can be more selective, which ultimately affects vulnerable renters.”

The Renters’ Rights Act has been one of Labour’s flagship housing reforms, positioned as a response to rising tenant insecurity and escalating rents. Ministers have argued that ending no-fault evictions will create a fairer and more stable rental system.

Critics, however, say the legislation risks shifting the balance too far against landlords at a time when higher mortgage rates and stricter lending criteria have already reduced investor appetite.

With housing affordability and rental shortages dominating political debate, Reform’s pledge signals that the private rented sector is likely to remain a central battleground ahead of the next election.

Whether scrapping the Act would stimulate supply or simply deepen volatility remains contested. What is clear is that Britain’s rental market continues to face profound structural pressures, with policy direction likely to shape landlord behaviour, and tenant security, for years to come.

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Reform vows to scrap Renters’ Rights Act, warning of ‘job-killing’ regulation

HSBC has unveiled its largest bonus pool in 14 years after annual profits came in ahead of City expectations, handing bankers a $3.9bn windfall as the group accelerates its strategic overhaul.

The FTSE 100 lender increased total variable pay by 10 per cent year-on-year, taking the 2025 bonus pot to its highest level since $4.2bn was distributed in 2011. The uplift comes despite a 7.4 per cent fall in annual pre-tax profits to $29.9bn, a figure that nevertheless beat analyst forecasts of $28.9bn.

Profits were weighed down by $4.9bn in one-off charges, including $1.4bn in legal provisions and a $2.1bn impairment linked to its stake in China’s Bank of Communications.

Chief executive Georges Elhedery said the bank was benefiting from “strong momentum” and defended the bonus rise as part of a drive to embed a “high performance culture”.

“It’s a culture where talent and performance are better rewarded,” he said.

Elhedery himself received a £14.4m pay package for the year, up from £13.2m previously.

Since taking the helm, Elhedery has embarked on a sweeping restructuring designed to simplify the bank and cut costs. HSBC now expects to achieve $1.5bn in savings by the end of June, six months earlier than originally planned.

Headcount fell to 208,720 at the end of last year from 211,304 the previous year, reflecting thousands of job reductions across the group.

The bank is also deepening its focus on Asia, where it generates the bulk of its profits. It recently completed a $13.6bn transaction to take full control of its Hong Kong-focused subsidiary, Hang Seng Bank.

HSBC said it expects to generate $900m in benefits from Hang Seng by 2028, including $500m in synergies. Elhedery said any duplication arising from the takeover would be managed through redeployment rather than widespread redundancies.

Alongside the bonus announcement, HSBC confirmed it would return $7.71bn to shareholders through a 45-cent-a-share dividend. Shares rose 5 per cent in early London trading following the results.

The combination of stronger-than-expected earnings, accelerated cost savings and a renewed focus on its core Asian markets appears to have reassured investors, even as the bank navigates geopolitical tensions and ongoing restructuring costs.

For staff, the enlarged bonus pool signals a return to more generous payouts, and underlines Elhedery’s determination to reward performance as HSBC seeks to sharpen its competitive edge.

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HSBC staff share $3.9bn bonus pot as profits top forecasts

The British Business Bank has committed a further £25m to support emerging and diverse angel syndicates across the UK, bringing total investment in the platform to £32m.

The funding is being deployed through a vehicle managed by Haatch, an early-stage VC firm and existing partner of the Bank. The expanded commitment follows an initial £7m investment last year into a first cohort of five angel syndicates.

The initiative is designed to channel capital into high-performing but recently established syndicates, helping to widen access to early-stage funding and improve diversity within the UK startup ecosystem.

Syndicates already backed through the partnership include HERmesa, a women-led angel network focused on tech-enabled startups; CircleRock Capital, a sector-agnostic early-stage platform; The Games Angels, which specialises in gaming; Sie Ventures, investing in diverse founding teams; and 2050 Capital, a deep tech and science investor.

Since launching in May 2025, the platform has invested in 13 companies across the UK, spanning regions from Cornwall and Cardiff to Cambridge and London. The investments cover healthcare, sustainability and deep technology.

Backed companies include Ensilicated Technologies, which is developing technology to remove the need for cold-chain vaccine storage; Motics Technologies, an AI-powered healthcare automation platform; and Mimicrete, which is working on bio-inspired self-healing concrete. Other recipients include TurinTech.ai, a University College London spinout focused on AI-driven code optimisation, and CheMastery Group, a chemistry automation startup.

The programme has also supported founders from a broad range of backgrounds, including a Savile Row-trained designer, a practising midwife and a Women in Innovation award winner.

Fred Soneya, co-founder and general partner at Haatch, said collaboration between investors was essential to ensure capital reaches the strongest early-stage companies. “By working with more syndicates from across the UK, we’re directing funding to some of the most innovative startups in the country,” he said.

Mark Barry, senior investment director at the British Business Bank, said the platform was now being scaled to reach additional syndicates nationwide.

The move reflects the Bank’s broader mandate to improve access to equity finance for early-stage businesses and to support innovation-driven growth across multiple sectors of the UK economy.

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British Business Bank and Haatch commit £32m to back diverse UK angel syndicates

Peter Mandelson was arrested at his Regent’s Park home amid concerns he posed a potential flight risk, according to his legal team.

The former cabinet minister and peer was detained on Monday afternoon on suspicion of misconduct in public office, following allegations that sensitive government documents were leaked while he was serving as business secretary under Gordon Brown.

Police questioned Mandelson for several hours before releasing him on bail in the early hours of Tuesday morning. As part of his bail conditions, he was required to surrender his passport.

His lawyers said officers had previously agreed to interview him on a voluntary basis next month but moved to arrest him following what they described as a “baseless suggestion” that he was planning to relocate abroad.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Mandelson said: “There is absolutely no truth whatsoever in any suggestion that he was intending to leave the country permanently. His overriding priority is to cooperate fully with the police investigation and to clear his name.”

Sources indicated that detectives from the Metropolitan Police Service acted after receiving new information over the weekend. Earlier this month, officers from the force’s Central Specialist Crime team executed search warrants at two properties linked to Mandelson and seized computers and documents for examination.

A source close to the investigation said the decision to arrest was taken for “clear operational reasons” after fresh intelligence came to light.

Mandelson has not been charged and denies any wrongdoing. The investigation remains ongoing.

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Lord Mandelson arrested amid concerns he was ‘flight risk’

A senior adviser to Rachel Reeves has drawn sharp criticism from the hospitality sector after saying Britain does not “need any more restaurants”.

Alex Depledge, appointed last year as the Government’s entrepreneurship adviser, argued that ministers should prioritise high-growth industries such as technology and advanced manufacturing rather than hospitality and retail.

Speaking to Insider Media, Depledge said: “We don’t need any more restaurants. I’m not anti-hospitality, but that’s not where my efforts are.” She added that the UK should focus on scaling sectors such as clean tech and creative industries to drive long-term economic growth.

Her remarks prompted an immediate backlash from publicans and restaurateurs already grappling with higher national insurance contributions and business rate reforms.

Sacha Lord, chairman of the Nighttime Industry Association and a former adviser to Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, said the comments deepened confusion about Labour’s stance towards hospitality. “Small and medium-sized businesses are the largest employers in the private sector,” he said, adding that the sector had been “blindsided” by recent tax changes.

TV chef Michel Roux Jr also criticised the remarks on social media, while pub campaigner Andy Lennox urged Depledge to reconsider what he described as “unwise words”.

Hospitality accounts for around 7 per cent of UK employment, with roughly 2.6 million people working in the sector, according to the Office for National Statistics. The number of restaurants fell 1.3 per cent in 2025 to 89,600, as operators faced rising costs and squeezed consumer spending.

Depledge, who founded property and software businesses including Resi UK and Good Lord, defended her focus on sectors capable of generating higher productivity and wages. She suggested that while small businesses remain vital, their overall contribution to the economy has remained broadly stable over decades.

The Chancellor has introduced targeted relief for pubs, including a temporary 15 per cent business rates discount, but restaurants and hotels have continued to press for broader support.

The episode underscores growing tension between Labour’s push to champion “future-facing” industries and the concerns of traditional sectors that remain major employers across the country.

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Reeves adviser sparks backlash after saying UK doesn’t ‘need any more restaurants’

In many organisations, portfolio is still viewed as a list of products and services – something to be expanded in the hope that more choice will unlock more opportunity. In reality, sustainable growth rarely comes from volume alone.

For high-performing businesses, a strategic portfolio is one that is deliberately designed around customer outcomes. It supports acquisition, strengthens retention and creates long-term value through clarity, consistency and service excellence.

In this blog I will be exploring how a focused, service-led portfolio can drive sustainable growth. Drawing on Chubb’s approach to connected services, cross-selling and long-term customer relationships, he explains why portfolio discipline is a critical leadership lever in today’s complex and regulated markets.

Portfolio as a Growth Strategy, Not a Catalogue

Across many sectors, portfolios grow reactively – shaped by short-term sales opportunities or competitor activity. Over time, this can create fragmented offerings that are difficult for customers to navigate and challenging for teams to deliver consistently.

In fire safety and security, where trust, reliability and compliance are paramount, this approach simply doesn’t work. Customers aren’t looking for disconnected products; they’re looking for partners who can manage risk holistically.

A strategic portfolio is therefore not about selling more things. It’s about offering the right combination of services, delivered in a way that supports both immediate needs and long-term resilience.

Portfolio as One of Chubb’s Three Ps

At Chubb, Portfolio sits alongside People and Process as one of our three strategic pillars, and it plays a central role in driving top-line growth.

Our portfolio strategy is built around:

Service and monitoring-led propositions
Multi-discipline contracts that simplify supplier management for customers
Connected services that provide insight, responsiveness and peace of mind

By leading with service, we create opportunities to capture greater share of customer spend while delivering more integrated, value-driven solutions. This approach supports both customer acquisition and retention – helping us build long-term relationships rather than transactional engagements.

However, implementing portfolio discipline is not without challenges. Internal resistance to change, legacy systems and market pressures can all pose obstacles. At Chubb, we address these by fostering a culture of continuous improvement, investing in staff training, and modernising our technology to support agile decision-making.

Connected Services and Cross-Selling with Purpose

Cross-selling is often misunderstood as simply adding more products to an account. At Chubb, it’s about identifying where additional services genuinely enhance protection, performance and compliance.

Connected services play a critical role here. By leveraging data, monitoring and integrated technologies, we’re able to:

Anticipate customer needs
Improve response and reliability
Strengthen ongoing engagement through service excellence

This creates natural opportunities to expand relationships in a way that feels relevant and valuable to customers – not forced or opportunistic. For example, one of our long-term customers faced evolving compliance requirements. By proactively offering a bundled solution that combined fire safety audits with ongoing monitoring, we not only met their immediate needs but also deepened our relationship and opened the door to additional services.

Retention Is Where Sustainable Growth Lives

While acquisition is important, long-term growth depends on retention. A well-curated portfolio makes it easier to retain customers by delivering consistent service, reducing complexity and reinforcing trust over time.

Multi-discipline contracts supported by connected services help customers see Chubb as a long-term partner, not a collection of suppliers. That loyalty is built through reliability, insight and the confidence that we’re continuously investing in their safety and resilience.

Lessons for Business Leaders

Business leaders should regularly review their portfolios, ensuring that each service or product contributes to sustainable growth. This means being willing to make tough decisions – retiring offerings that no longer serve the company or its customers and investing in those that do.

For leaders looking to refine their portfolios, consider these actionable steps:

Conduct regular portfolio reviews with cross-functional teams
Use customer feedback and data analytics to guide decisions
Develop a checklist to assess each offering’s alignment with strategic goals.

Portfolio with Purpose

At Chubb, we see portfolio as a growth engine – one powered by service excellence, commercial discipline and customer insight.

By focusing on connected services, cross-selling with intent and long-term retention, we’re building sustainable growth that benefits our customers, our people and our business.

Because when your portfolio is designed around customer outcomes, sustainable growth follows naturally – built on trust, clarity and long-term value.

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Building Sustainable Growth Through a Strategic Portfolio

The UK’s data protection watchdog has fined Reddit £14.47m after finding serious failings in how the platform handled children’s personal information.

The penalty, issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), follows an investigation that concluded Reddit had failed to implement robust age assurance mechanisms and did not have a lawful basis for processing the data of children under 13.

Under UK data protection law, children’s information must be given special protection. The ICO said Reddit did not have effective systems in place to verify users’ ages until July 2025, despite its terms of service prohibiting under-13s from accessing the platform.

The regulator also found that Reddit failed to carry out a data protection impact assessment (DPIA) addressing risks to children until January 2025, even though users aged 13 to 18 were permitted to join.

John Edwards, the UK Information Commissioner, described the failings as unacceptable. “Children under 13 had their personal information collected and used in ways they could not understand, consent to or control,” he said. “Relying on users to declare their age themselves is not enough when children may be at risk.”

In July 2025, Reddit introduced new measures including age verification for access to mature content and requiring users to declare their age at account creation. However, the ICO has warned that self-declaration alone presents risks, as it can be easily bypassed.

The regulator said it would continue monitoring Reddit’s approach as part of wider enforcement activity focused on online platforms that rely primarily on self-declared ages.

The fine takes into account the number of children potentially affected, the duration of the failings and Reddit’s global turnover.

The ICO’s action follows its ongoing supervision of platforms under the UK’s Age Appropriate Design Code, also known as the Children’s Code, which sets out standards for services likely to be accessed by under-18s.

The regulator has said safeguarding children’s privacy online remains a priority and confirmed it will continue working closely with Ofcom, which enforces the Online Safety Act, to ensure coordinated oversight of digital platforms.

The decision underscores intensifying scrutiny of tech companies operating in the UK, particularly around age verification and the lawful processing of children’s data.

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ICO fines Reddit £14.47m over children’s data protection failures

Violence and abuse against shop workers declined by a fifth last year, but retail leaders say crime levels remain far higher than before the pandemic and continue to pose a serious threat to staff safety.

New figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Sensormatic Solutions show there were 1,600 incidents of violence and abuse against retail workers every day in 2024/25, down from 2,000 daily incidents the previous year. That equates to around 590,000 incidents over the year.

Despite the improvement, the BRC warned that the rate remains the second highest on record and well above the pre-pandemic average of 455 incidents per day.

Physical violence showed little change, remaining at 118 incidents a day, including 36 daily cases involving a weapon.

The data also reveal 5.5 million incidents of shop theft last year, costing retailers close to £400m. The true total is likely to be significantly higher, given many thefts go undetected.

For the first time, the report included parcel delivery theft, which cost retailers more than £100m in 2024/25.

Industry leaders say organised criminal gangs are increasingly targeting high-value goods that can be easily resold, carrying out systematic thefts across multiple stores.

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, said the reduction in violence was “hard won” but warned that theft and abuse remain endemic. “No one should go to work fearing for their safety,” she said.

The government’s forthcoming Crime and Policing Bill will introduce a specific offence for assaulting a retail worker, alongside scrapping the £200 threshold that previously limited police response to low-value shoplifting.

Sarah Jones said the government was determined to tackle retail crime and highlighted a 21 per cent rise in shop theft charges.

The legislation comes amid broader concerns about high street viability. Retailers are also contending with rising employment costs, including higher national insurance contributions and increases to the national living wage.

Usdaw general secretary Joanne Thomas said that while the fall in incidents was welcome, retail workers still face unacceptable risks. Two-thirds of attacks on staff are triggered by theft or armed robbery, union data suggest.

Retailers have spent more than £5bn over the past five years on security measures including CCTV systems and additional personnel, according to the BRC.

Despite the slight improvement, campaigners and unions argue that violence and theft remain at crisis levels, with many shop workers reporting heightened stress and anxiety about going to work.

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Violent attacks on shop staff fall by a fifth but remain ‘unacceptably high’