British investor Sir James Dyson, founder of vacuum cleaner company Dyson, is donating $7.9m to The Royal College of Art to support engineering start-ups.

LearnZillion, a US-based online teaching platform, has raised $2.4m in its series A round from a syndicate of 17 investors, including Social Venture Fund, a student-led fund at the University of Michigan's Stephen M Ross School of Business.

Alongside Uni Venture, a venture capital arm of Bawag that works closely with Innovationsagentur, in the round were Buschier, Fides and Hybag.

Cindy Xiao Shiato, an executive with the Suzhou Industrial Park Administrative Committee, said: "We want to have a close collaboration with US universities, US [VC] firms."

The supplier's Beijing Origin Seed subsidiary and HAU have jointly established the SK Wu Corn Research Institute for this research exchange.

Alongside Uni Venture, a venture capital arm of Bawag that works closely with Innovationsagentur, in the round were Buschier, Fides and Hybag.

US-based Indiana University secures a collaborative research and development agreement with the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division.