London's Arcane Metrics raises £22M
London-based Arcane Metrics has closed a £22 million Series B round to expand its privacy-first analytics suite. The funding highlights investor confidence in companies providing solutions for the adtech industry as it navigates signal loss and stricter privacy regulations. The investment is part of a broader trend of capital flowing into London's fintech and AI infrastructure sectors.
- The company, actually named Arcane and focused on AI for marketing automation, was co-founded by Ben Hacking (formerly of Deliveroo and WeWork) and Jeremy Frenay (formerly of Babylon). Its latest announced funding was a $6 million Seed round, not a Series B, with investors including Accel, Seedcamp, and notable angels like Tom Blomfield of Monzo. - As a growth-stage CTO, the role evolves from hands-on coding to strategic leadership, focusing on scaling infrastructure, managing larger engineering teams, and aligning the technology roadmap with business objectives. A key responsibility during fundraising or M&A is leading the technical due diligence process, which involves assessing the target's architecture, scalability, security, and technical debt to de-risk the investment. - The planned deprecation of third-party cookies has seen significant shifts; Google officially ended its Privacy Sandbox initiative in late 2025 after regulatory pressure and mixed industry testing. For now, third-party cookies remain in Chrome, meaning immediate alternative solutions for signal loss are less urgent, but the strategic focus on first-party data remains critical. - Enterprise adoption of agentic AI is accelerating, with 74% of companies planning to deploy it within the next two years to automate complex workflows and decision-making. For adtech, this means a move from simple automation to AI agents that can autonomously manage and optimize campaigns, a trend that will require new infrastructure and governance models. - The UK tech sector saw funding reach between £11.7 billion and $15.3 billion in 2025, a decrease from the previous year, though it remains the second-highest funded country globally. Late-stage funding proved resilient, while early-stage investment saw a decline, indicating a market preference for more mature, de-risked companies. - Recent notable CTO appointments in the UK tech landscape include Christina Scott, formerly of OVO Energy and News UK, who was appointed Chief Product and Technology Officer at RWS Holdings in May 2025. In August 2025, Andrew McCartney, former CEO of Microsoft Ventures UK and co-founder of AI firm Whitespace, was appointed CTO of Defence Holdings PLC.
