Deutsche Bahn and General Motors were among the existing investors as Daimler paid an undisclosed amount to acquire ride sharing platform Flinc.

The facility will feature four laboratories to research fields such as geothermal energy and hydrogen-fuelled cars, while also furthering an $239.5m collaboration with other Midlands region universities.

Dewost said: "With Leonard, Vinci is offering me a chance to contribute to the digital transformation of durable structures and move from bytes to concrete.

Florian Graillot has left Axa Strategic Ventures to form an insurance-focused venture firm called Astorya.vc, the same month as colleague Minh Tran departed.

Laura Bond, formerly senior innovation partnerships manager at Alliance Boots, has moved to Accelerated Digital Ventures where she will be investment lead for venture partnerships.

Girish Nadkarni, president of ABB Technology Ventures from 2009 until late last year, is set to take the president position at Total Energy Ventures.

Jonathan Tudor, formerly of Castrol InnoVentures and BP Ventures, has accepted an offer to join Centrica Innovations.

Beauty services provider Blow, which also counts Unilever as an investor, will begin setting up beauty bars at Debenams department stores through the deal.

Evotec has injected $17.7m into Exscientia, becoming the first strategic shareholder in the drug discovery spinout based on research at University of Dundee.