The Rundown: Edition 32 – Star Wars, AI social media, and Barnsley

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UK Research and Innovation freezes new grants

UKRI, the public body that spends £8 billion of taxpayer money each year funding research and innovation, has warned it faces “hard decisions” and has frozen new grants. The move follows the publication of an open letter by UKRI boss, Ian Chapman, which claimed the Government had told it to “focus and do fewer things better”. BBC

Major banks agree £11bn SME lending package

HSBC, Barclays, NatWest, Lloyds and Santander have committed to a “landmark” £11 billion lending package designed to support SMEs in investing and expanding abroad. The push comes at a time when the international business landscape is becoming increasingly complex amid ongoing tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. UKTN

US security review stalls Nvidia AI chip sales to China

Nearly two months after US President Donald Trump approved the sale of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, the deal is still awaiting final sign-off. The hold-up is said to be due to the US government conducting a national security review before granting licences to Chinese customers. FT

Google owner Alphabet increases AI spending

The Silicon Valley tech giant is targeting capital expenditure of $175 billion to $185 billion this year. This beat analyst expectations of a spend of around $115.26 billion, according to LSEG data. Times

ElevenLabs hits $11bn valuation with new raise

The UK AI voice developer ElevenLabs has raised $500 million in a round led by Sequoia Capital, more than tripling its valuation to $11 billion. Other investors to participate included Andreessen Horowitz and Iconiq. Bloomberg

Veremark raises $15m Series B

Veremark, which runs background checks on candidates for companies hiring overseas, has raised a Series B round led by Gresham House Ventures with participation from Samaipata, ACF Investors and Stage 2 Capital. Times

CesiumAstro secures $470m in debt and equity

CesiumAstro, which is developing advanced satellite connectivity technology for use in space and defence, has announced a $470 million debt-and-equity round, with backing from Trousdale Ventures, Airbus Ventures and Toyota’s Woven Capital. GCV

AI materials firm Polaron raises $8m

London-based startup Polaron, an AI model designed for engineers, has announced an $8 million funding round led by Racine2, with additional investment from Speedinvest, Futurepresent and angel investors. UKTN

Welcome to Barnsley – the UK’s first tech town

The Government has named Barnsley as the UK’s first Tech Town. It will see AI implemented across schools, businesses and public services, and potentially the way for the rest of the UK to follow. Gov UK

Anthropic presents big headache for legaltech

Anthropic’s release of a legal plugin was “inevitable”, according to Gregory Mostyn, CEO of Wexler AI and will make many legaltech firm will be feeling “rather nervous” because they have built contract-review and simple-legal-task products. City AM

Bringing down the cost of space

Accessing space is cheaper than ever, thanks to private companies and innovative technologies. Alan Thompson, Director of Government Affairs at Skyrora, notes that governments play an important role as consumers of the tech, particularly in space and defence. MoneyWeek

China’s Star Wars warships cause concern

China has unveiled ‘Star Wars’-style warships, which Andriy Dovbenko, Founder of UK-Ukraine TechExchange, believes will spark curiosity and concern. He argues that it shouldn’t distract us from existing threats we’re already unprepared for, like drone attacks. Metro

Deal spree continues for European investors

Europe’s top 100 investors completed 3,070 deals last year, half of all equity deals recorded across the continent in 2025. Among the most active investors were Antler, ACF Investors, Future Planet Capital, Northern Gritstone, and Plug and Play. Sifted

While under-16s in Spain can no longer use social media, AI agents are having the time of their lives online. Moltbook is a social media site for AI bots, where they can post and interact with each other in a way that’s been compared with Reddit. The only role humans have is to watch the bots interact, and unsurprisingly, things got weird. One bot wrote about creating a new religion, and when one bot noted that “the humans are screenshotting us,” another suggested coming up with a new language entirely to be more discreet. There have also been attempts to unionise and plot against humans. Elon Musk believes this is just the beginning of ‘the singularity’ – the hypothetical point at which AI surpasses human intelligence and control. Scary stuff.

In a slight change of track (no pun intended), EV sales only rose 0.1% in January. The drop in demand could be due to Labour’s plans to impose a pay-per-mile tax in 2028. Perhaps one way to address the stalled EV transition is through R3 Robotics. The Luxembourg-based company is upcycling batteries to fully dismantle EVs in a bid to solve Europe’s supply of critical raw materials. This might help the EU with its plans to stockpile such materials to cut reliance on China.