-
Share
DIGIT Deal Roundup | April 2026
Catch up with the latest funding and investment deals in this month’s DIGIT Deal Roundup!
Welcome to April 2026’s DIGIT Deal Roundup.
Cash showered down on Scottish tech in April as major global deals took place and the government ramped up financial support for major industries in the sector. From immersive tech to video games and connectivity, deals and funding rounds were truly blossoming as Scotland entered Spring.
Amazon made some major investment moves in both Starlink and Anthropic, as the UK government announced the first award winners of its Sovereign AI fund.
In energy news, Rolls-Royce is going nuclear, and thermal tech spinout Exergy3 raised £10 million.
All that, and more, coming up!
Funding
Scots Creatives Land £265K for Immersive Tech Projects
Seventeen creative projects from across Scotland have been awarded £265,000 in immersive technology funding in the second round of the Immersive Arts grant programme, aiming to break the barriers for artists of all backgrounds to utilise immersive tools.
With three distinct grant amounts available, £5,000, £20,000 and £50,000, the funding is designed to support artists at different stages of their creative development, allowing them to explore, experiment or expand how they make work that uses technology to actively involve an audience.
Award winners from this round include The Game by Biome Collective, which received a £50,000 Expand grant to create an immersive sound-walk artwork through Dundee. Using a mobile app and headphones, audiences walk through the city to explore football as a lived culture, with their route, pace and pauses triggering different audio elements and composition.
Read more here.
UK Gov Boosts Video Games Developers With £30M Fund
Video game developers with great ideas for the next generation of smash hit games are being urged to apply for a share of a new £28.5 million pot of funding.
The move represents a doubling in funding for the sector as the government puts the Creative Industries Sector Plan into action. These targeted investments are expected to pay dividends to the taxpayer by driving economic growth and creating jobs. Applications for funding will open from 14 April.
The UK is already an international powerhouse in gaming, having created global hits like Grand Theft Auto, Fable, PowerWash Simulator and No Man’s Sky. Across the UK, there are more than 2,000 gaming companies, employing tens of thousands of people recognised globally for their talent and creativity.
Through the Games Growth Package, the government will support newly-formed and expanding developers to turn blueprints for games into reality, enabling them to sell their product both in the UK and around the world.
Read more here.
TRICAPITAL Angels Leads £1.2m Investment Into Sovereign Dual Use 5G Solutions
A UK-developed technology delivering ultra-reliable, infrastructure-independent 5G connectivity to the world’s hardest-to-reach locations has secured a £1.2million investment to accelerate its growth.
The funding comes at a time of increasing global focus on national resilience, secure communications infrastructure, and sovereign capability across critical sectors.
JET Connectivity has developed land and sea-based alternatives to satellite networks such as Starlink and brings secure, high-bandwidth communications to offshore, coastal and ultra-remote sites anywhere on the planet.
The £1.2m Pre-Series A funding round was led by TRICAPITAL Angels, with participation from private investors and The FSE Group. The investment will enable JET Connectivity to rapidly scale its operations throughout 2026 and meet accelerating demand for its secure sovereign 5G network systems, particularly across national security and resilience applications.
Read more here.
British Business Bank Commits Up to £35 Million to Episode 1 Fund IV
The British Business Bank has made a commitment of up to £35 million to Episode 1’s Fund IV. The commitment follows the Bank’s previous investments into Episode 1’s 2014 vintage Fund I, 2018 Fund II, and 2022 Fund III.
Episode 1 is an investor backing early stage companies, primarily at the pre-seed and seed stages. It takes an algorithmic approach to finding and evaluating software-driven UK companies with a specific focus on AI, Software Infrastructure, Deep Tech and Tech Bio.
Episode 1’s strategy demonstrates strong alignment with the UK’s Industrial Strategy sectors, with a significant majority of the Fund III portfolio mapping to five of the eight priority sectors – digital and technology, financial services, professional and business services, clean energy, and life sciences. Fund IV will continue to largely back businesses within the Industrial Strategy sectors.
Read more here.
Amazon Targets Starlink Tussle With $11.57bn Globalstar Deal
Amazon has agreed to acquire satellite communications firm Globalstar in a deal valued at $11.57 billion, marking a significant escalation in its efforts to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink network and expand its presence in the rapidly growing satellite connectivity market.
The agreement will see Amazon take control of Globalstar’s existing constellation of roughly two dozen satellites, integrating them into its broader low Earth orbit (LEO) ambitions.
The company is already working towards deploying around 3,200 satellites by 2029, with approximately half required to be operational by a July regulatory deadline, and is preparing to roll out its own satellite internet services later this year.
Read more here.
Amazon to Invest $25BN in Anthropic
Amazon is set to invest up to $25 billion in Anthropic, the tech giant said, as the AI firm commits to spending over $100 billion on Amazon’s cloud technology over the next decade.
The deal will start with a $5 billion investment into Anthropic now, with the additional $20 billion set aside for the future and subject to certain conditions.
The investment announcement comes after Amazon said it would invest $50 billion in OpenAI, a top rival to Anthropic.
Amazon has struggled to cement its own AI model, Nova, in the market, but is making waves as a critical infrastructure provider, leveraging its cloud computing power to benefit from the AI race.
Read more here.
Edinburgh Clean-Tech Spinout Exergy3 Raises £10M
Edinburgh University spinout Exergy3 has raised £10 million in seed funding to scale its proprietary technology targeting industrial decarbonisation, grid balancing and energy security.
The round, led by French VC firm Axeleo Capital, whose Article 9 Green Tech Industry I fund backs deeptech environmental-focused startups, will help push Exergy3’s transition from early demonstration to scale after proving its thermal energy tech in real‑world conditions.
Additional backing came from Bavaria-based VC investor Bayern Kapital and Singapore-based climate tech fund Kibo Invest, who joined existing investors Scottish Enterprise, Zero Carbon Capital and Old College Capital, the University of Edinburgh’s in-house venture investment fund.
Read more here.
Google Cloud to Invest $750M to Scale Enterprise AI for Partners
Google Cloud has announced a $750 million fund to deliver new resources and incentives to partners in its 120,000-member ecosystem, aiming to accelerate customers’ use of agentic AI.
Open to global consulting firms, systems integrators, software partners, and channel partners, the fund will support AI value identification, agent building and deployment, as well as supporting workforce upskilling and hands‑on support from Google’s forward‑deployed engineering (FDE) teams.
Google Cloud said that its network of partners already offers more than 330,000 experts trained on implementing Google AI for customers, with 95% of the top 20 and over over 80% of the top 100 SaaS companies using Gemini models, with the fresh capital designed to accelerate the transformative capabilities of Google’s products for these customers.
Read more here.
UK Gov Launches Sovereign AI Unit With £500M Investment
The UK government is set to launch its Sovereign AI Unit, a £500 million investment in the UK’s AI sector aiming to generate jobs and economic growth.
The Sovereign AI Unit is set to boost AI startups, which raised £6 billion in venture capital investment last year. According to the UK government, however, too many startups are not breaking through the mould to garner commercial success despite their top-tier innovations.
The Sovereign AI Unit aims to fill this gap, acting as a government VC fund with purposeful investments in AI enterprises across the UK.
Read more here.
BetHog Raises $10M Series A
BetHog, created by FanDuel co-founders, announced a $10 million Series A financing and the launch of Sentient Studios, a new B2B provider that enables casino operators to deploy AI-powered dealers across their live online casino offerings. With this launch, BetHog is introducing a software-driven alternative to traditional live dealer supply models, giving operators greater control, flexibility, and scalability in how they deliver live casino experiences
The round was co-led by Will Ventures and RockawayX, with participation from PCV, 6MV, Bullpen Capital, and Advancit Capital, bringing BetHog’s total funding to $16 million. The company plans to use the capital to expand its AI dealer technology on its own platform and accelerate adoption of Sentient Studios among global gaming operators.
“We’ve tested our basic AI dealer over the past 6 months and have discovered that it is 10X more popular than its live dealer equivalent. In addition, we’ve seen better retention and player satisfaction.” said Nigel Eccles, CEO and co-founder of BetHog. “With Sentient Labs, we’re excited to bring this product to other online casinos where operators can launch and scale their own dealer experiences instantly, operate continuously, and create more personalized interactions for players.”
Deals
Rolls-Royce Signs Nuclear Small Modular Reactor Deal with Great British Energy
Rolls-Royce has won a contract with Great British Energy – Nuclear, formally commencing technology design activities that will enable the delivery of the UK’s first Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).
The UK’s first SMR project is estimated to support around 3,000 jobs at peak construction and thousands more across the UK supply chain, strengthening national energy security and supporting long‑term economic growth for local communities.
Rolls-Royce SMR was selected as the preferred technology partner in June 2025, and £2.6 billion was allocated in the 2025 Spending Review to enable this contract and wider programme delivery.
Read more here.
