SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO

News Editor

Calculus has led a £3 million investment round in hospitality software company Edify, contributing £2.5 million.

Edify was founded in 2024 by Ed Barry, who previously built and sold the Over Under coffee chain to Blank Street Coffee. The company develops an operations platform for hospitality groups and quick-service restaurant chains, bringing inventory management, demand forecasting and back-of-house workflows into one system.

The investment comes as restaurant and hospitality operators face pressure on costs, staffing and margins. Many general managers still rely on a patchwork of spreadsheets, manual ordering and separate software tools to manage stock, labour and day-to-day store performance.

Barry launched Edify after encountering those problems while expanding his own café business. Its software is designed around the decisions managers make in stores, with tools that automate ordering, flag discrepancies and create preparation plans for each shift.

Another part of the system, Ask Edify, pulls operational data into live dashboards so operators can query information without searching through multiple files or reports. The platform is already used by brands including Pret A Manger, Dunkin’ Donuts, WatchHouse and Yolk Brands.

Edify cited early results from Pret A Manger as an example of the platform’s impact. Pret estimates the software could save each store manager two hours a day, amounting to about USD $4 million a year across its UK stores.

Calculus is one of the UK’s longer-established managers of Enterprise Investment Scheme and Venture Capital Trust funds. It has more than 25 years of experience backing growth companies and around £170 million under management across sectors including technology, healthcare and the creative industries.

The firm has also been building exposure to hospitality technology. Its portfolio includes Grateful, a software platform focused on hospitality tronc and gratuity management, and the Edify deal adds to that focus.

Alexander Crawford, Co-Head of Investments at Calculus, said the firm was attracted by both Barry’s operating background and the company’s customer base.

“Ed built Edify because he’d lived the problem himself, and that shows in how the product is designed. Edify’s suite of products is a system built around how operators work. The customer traction at this stage, with brands like Pret and Dunkin’ Donuts already on the platform, is exceptional. We believe Edify has the potential to become the defining platform for how QSRs operate, and we’re proud to back them at this stage of the journey,” Crawford said.

The round included existing investors, though no further details were disclosed. The new capital will support Edify’s expansion as it seeks to win more restaurant and hospitality groups.

Operator roots

Barry’s background gives the business a founder with direct experience of the daily issues facing store managers and head office teams. That operational perspective has become a recurring theme among newer software companies selling into hospitality, where adoption often depends on whether tools fit the pace and routines of frontline teams.

Edify argues that fragmented systems remain a central problem. Managers often have to reconcile stock levels, supplier orders, staffing needs and sales forecasts while also dealing with customer service and team supervision, leaving less time to run stores.

The issue has become more visible as chains look for tighter control over waste, labour costs and procurement. Software that ties those functions together may reduce manual work while giving central management a clearer view of store-level performance.

Edify is positioning itself in that part of the market, where hospitality groups want fewer disconnected systems and more direct visibility into operations. Its customer list suggests it has already found an audience among established chains as well as newer café and food brands.

Barry said the business was created in response to a problem that extends across the sector.

“After scaling and selling my own coffee shop chain, I saw that the admin burden isn’t just a small business problem, it’s an industry problem. Operators are making critical decisions every day with fragmented systems, unclear data, and too much noise. Edify exists to change that. We’re not bolting AI onto old software. We’re building a live intelligence system around the way hospitality actually works, connecting the floor and HQ so GMs can lead better, stores can perform stronger, and businesses can grow smarter. Having Calculus alongside us, with their track record of backing ambitious UK technology businesses, gives us the platform to put Edify into the hands of many more operators,” Barry said.

Consultation on more than 80 changes along the East West Rail (EWR) line has been ongoing since April, and one change has those living in Bicester up in arms.

The existing London Road crossing in Bicester is to permanently close on safety grounds when the EWR line becomes fully operational.

CGI images of single-lane motorised underpass, which is the preferred option for Bicester’s London Road level crossing (Image: East West Rail Company)

Instead, an underpass is among the improvements proposed in the railway project.

Following a public consultation last November that received more than 6,200 responses, the underpass and an alternative footbridge have been proposed for the London Road crossing in Bicester as part of more than 80 design changes made to the East West Rail Project.

East West Railway Company said the revised underpass design would be subject to securing third-party funding contributions.

This was met with anger from the community, including from local campaigner of more than a decade and chairman of the Langford Village Community Association, Carole Hetherington, who described the announcement as “incredibly frustrating”.

READ MORE: Victoria Beckham gushed over Cruz after Spice Girls Instagram post

Carole Hetherington (Image: Charlotte Coles, Newsquest)

The new designs show a single-lane road for vehicles, alongside a protected active travel corridor for pedestrians and cyclists, but the underpass could not be used by tall vehicles such as lorries.

East West Rail’s preferred solution would be to divert traffic via existing and upgraded roads and to install a bridge or underpass for pedestrian, cyclists and other users.

The design now includes a single-lane road that could be used by vehicles, alongside a protected active travel corridor for pedestrians and cyclists.

Traffic signals would be installed at each entrance to allow vehicles to travel through the underpass safely in both directions.

Officials, businesses and residents fear that Bicester will be “cut in two” as a result, sparking an ongoing campaign to keep the crossing open to vehicles.

READ MORE: Group of ‘patriots’ to protest following murder of student Henry Nowak

L-R: Carole Hetherington, chairman of Langford Village Community Association; Johnny Morgan, The Fat Zebra; Robert Packman, Imagex; Andrew O’Gorman, O’Gormans (Image: Carole Hetherington)

Calum Miller, MP for Bicester and Woodstock, said in a statement: “This is the final week to respond to East West Rail’s consultation on London Road.

“I know I have asked before (many times) that Bicester has already shown, loud and clear, that we are united behind keeping London Road open.

“But this final push matters.

“East West Rail has now put forward revised proposals for an underpass at London Road. We now need the Government to have no excuse not to back it, fund it and deliver it.

“So, if you have five minutes this week, please respond to the consultation and make your voice heard.

“Bicester has fought too hard to be ignored now.”

EWR described the new line as connecting “communities between Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford and Cambridge, supporting sustainable economic growth in the area”.

The company confirmed the changes “would make it easier to reach jobs, education, public services and days out with family and friends”.

SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO

News Editor

Verne has unveiled a new brand identity and shortened its name from Verne Global to Verne, a change it says reflects its focus on AI and high-performance computing infrastructure.

The rebrand brings its public identity in line with a business that has expanded from a single-region operator into a pan-Nordic data centre platform. It serves hyperscalers, neocloud providers and enterprise customers with compute-intensive workloads across Northern Europe.

Backed by Ardian, Verne has been repositioning itself in a data centre market reshaped by demand for AI computing. Operators are under pressure to provide sufficient power, cooling and operational depth as customers seek sites that can support denser, more energy-intensive systems.

The updated branding centres on the phrase “natural intelligence”, which Verne uses to describe a combination of Nordic location advantages and the expertise of the teams running its facilities. The new identity is intended to deliver a clearer message to customers and communities as the company grows.

The visual redesign moves away from earlier imagery closely tied to landscape and energy. In its place, Verne is adopting a more restrained look based on Nordic design cues, with mineral textures, muted colours and architectural composition meant to reflect an engineering-led business.

Dropping “Global” from its name also better matches the way the company operates. Verne said it already sees itself as an international business, making the shorter name a simpler expression of its market position.

Market shift

The rebrand comes as data centre operators adjust both strategy and messaging to meet a surge in AI-related demand. Across the sector, providers are trying to distinguish themselves not only through location and sustainability claims, but also through their ability to house dense computing equipment reliably.

Nordic countries have drawn growing interest from data centre and cloud operators because of their cooler climates and access to lower-carbon electricity sources. Those factors can reduce cooling demands and help customers manage the environmental impact of large-scale computing operations.

For Verne, that backdrop has become central to its positioning. The revised brand places greater emphasis on the physical environments where it builds, the staff who operate its sites and the local communities connected to those facilities.

Cheil led the branding work, with support from other agencies across communications and digital strategy. The resulting identity is meant to reflect a business that says it has changed significantly in scale, customer mix and market expectations in recent years.

Nick Spink, Creative Director at Cheil Worldwide, described the thinking behind the project.

“Verne came to us with a clear challenge: how should its brand reflect the fundamental shift the business had made? As we explored the brief, we found a meaningful tension: how to communicate high-performance computing and AI in a way that still felt deeply human. This led us to ‘natural intelligence’, a concept that connects the advanced technology Verne enables with the natural advantages at the heart of the company: its locations, climate and grounded, disciplined approach. It proved a powerful and authentic fit,” said Spink.

Growth plans

Verne said the new identity also supports engagement with local communities in the regions where it operates. That work is intended to help explain the role of data centres in digital services while setting out how the company contributes locally.

The business has sought to frame that local message alongside a broader international customer base. As AI adoption rises, companies running large language models and other compute-heavy applications are looking for facilities that can support sustained, high-density demand, often across multiple sites and jurisdictions.

That has created an opening for operators with room to expand in markets where grid access, land and cooling conditions can still support new buildouts. Investors have been drawn to the same trend, with infrastructure funds and private equity groups increasing their exposure to data centres as AI spending grows.

Ardian’s backing supports Verne as it expands across the Nordics and Northern Europe. The company did not announce new sites alongside the rebrand, but said the refreshed identity is designed to support the next phase of growth.

Anne Katrine Vestergaard Jensen, Vice President of Marketing at Verne, said the changes were meant to reflect a business now facing different expectations from customers and the wider market.

“Verne has changed significantly – in scale, in markets and in the expectations placed on us. This refresh makes that clear. In this market, clarity builds trust, and trust drives decisions. We’ve grounded the brand in something more real: the environments we build in, the people who operate our sites and the role we play in local communities. That’s what gives it credibility – and it’s also what we mean by natural intelligence: the combination of our natural advantages and the human intelligence of the teams behind the infrastructure,” said Jensen.