KAREN JOY BACUDO

Finance Editor

The UK raised USD $1.8 billion across 181 FinTech deals in the first half of 2026, keeping its position as the world’s second-largest FinTech investment market, according to Innovate Finance.

The UK also led all European markets during the period, even as global FinTech investment fell to USD $28 billion from USD $32.5 billion in the previous half year. That marks a 12% decline worldwide, compared with a 5% fall in the UK.

The data points to a more selective market for FinTech funding, with artificial intelligence attracting a larger share of venture capital. Global venture capital investment in AI reached more than USD $400 billion in the first half of 2026, more than 50% higher than the total invested in AI during all of 2025, the industry body said.

The US remained the largest FinTech investment market, raising USD $17.2 billion in the first half, up from USD $15.6 billion in the previous six months. India ranked third globally with USD $1.5 billion across 122 deals, while France and Singapore completed the top five with USD $1.3 billion and USD $0.6 billion, respectively.

For the UK, the figures suggest a steadier performance than the wider market despite tighter fundraising conditions. The largest UK FinTech deal in the period was Ebury’s USD $203 million raise.

Global rankings

The largest individual FinTech deals of the half-year were concentrated outside the UK. US-based Ramp raised USD $750 million, making it the biggest FinTech funding round globally in the period.

France’s Alan secured USD $554 million, while India’s CRED raised USD $500 million. Mexico-based Plata attracted USD $405 million, and US retirement savings platform Vestwell raised USD $385 million.

Elsewhere, Canada and Mexico each recorded about USD $0.5 billion in FinTech investment. The UAE attracted USD $0.4 billion, and Germany raised USD $0.3 billion.

AI focus

The report also included a first-time analysis of AI investment in the UK alongside FinTech funding. On that measure, the UK ranked third globally, behind the US and China.

The comparison highlights how investors are allocating more capital to AI across the technology sector, even as specialist segments such as FinTech face a slower funding environment. For UK investors and founders, that may help explain why the country’s FinTech sector held its global standing despite a lower total.

Innovate Finance used data primarily from PitchBook, supplemented by Beauhurst and its own analysis. The study covered venture capital equity investment in FinTech and excluded debt capital raises.

“FinTech remains one of the most important applications of AI, and continues to attract significant investor interest. In H1 2026, UK FinTech has once again outperformed the wider market, retaining its position as Europe’s leading FinTech hub, and second globally. That resilience reflects the depth, maturity and international competitiveness of the UK’s outstanding FinTech sector. It is also a testament to the UK’s leadership in technology more broadly that we have claimed third position globally for wider AI investment,” said Janine Hirt, Chief Executive Officer at Innovate Finance.

Marc Lewis has launched SCAFFOLD, an AI platform for creative professionals who want to build and keep a personal AI trained on their own creative process.

Lewis, Dean of the School of Communication Arts in London, created the platform in response to concerns that widely used AI tools are making creative work look and sound more alike.

SCAFFOLD is designed for freelance creatives, in-house teams and agencies. Through a structured conversation with MarcAI, an AI model trained on Lewis’s coaching method, the system maps a user’s thinking, tastes, preferences and working habits into what it calls a Blueprint.

That Blueprint is then turned into an Exoskeleton, a personal AI agent intended to work alongside the user on live briefs. The agent can also work across the AI tools a user already relies on, rather than locking their work into a single platform.

The launch comes amid a wider debate in marketing, advertising and design over whether generative AI is eroding distinction in creative output. As brands increasingly use standard AI tools to produce copy, images and video, the concern is that their content will begin to converge with that of competitors.

Research from Kapwing, cited by the company, found that 59% of videos shown to new TikTok accounts in the platform’s For You feed were classed as “AI slop”. The same research found that rate was roughly three times higher than in a similar analysis of YouTube.

Ownership model

A central part of SCAFFOLD’s approach is ownership. Users keep the Blueprint and Exoskeleton they create even if they stop paying for the service, unlike subscription software models that keep access to user-trained systems and data within the provider’s platform.

The self-paced online version, SCAFFOLD Build, is priced at GBP £28 a month. The company also offers live coaching workshops with Lewis.

Lewis said the decision to let users keep what they build was deliberate.

“Most of what sits on your desktop, you rent, you don’t own it. And the day you stop paying, it locks you out and keeps everything you put inside it,” said Marc Lewis, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, SCAFFOLD.

He added: “The obvious, lazy, deeply profitable move would have been to keep that on our servers and rent it back to you forever, but we couldn’t do it.”

Creative process

Rather than relying on a large archive of past work to tune an AI model, SCAFFOLD is built around a guided two-hour session designed to capture how a person approaches creative decisions. The method draws on Lewis’s 15 years of coaching at the School of Communication Arts, as well as principles from cognitive science, according to the company.

The idea behind the method is that creative identity is shaped not only by outputs but also by judgement, taste, vetoes and habits. In practice, that means the system is intended to reflect how a user thinks through a brief rather than simply imitating finished work.

Lewis framed that as the rationale for the platform.

“AI hasn’t lived. It hasn’t danced. It hasn’t been dumped at 2am and then sat in a kebab shop at closing time trying to make sense of its life. That is where real creative work comes from and no model has it. SCAFFOLD keeps the human in charge of the machine. It learns your taste and your process, then does the grunt work in your voice rather than flattening you into everyone else’s,” said Lewis.

Lewis has worked in advertising education and creative coaching for more than a decade. Earlier in his career, he also founded and sold an internet technology company. His role at the School of Communication Arts has given him visibility across the advertising sector at a time when agencies and brand teams are rapidly testing AI tools for campaign development, ideation and production.

SCAFFOLD enters a growing market of services that promise to personalise AI for professional work. It aims to stand out in two ways: training the system through structured conversations about a user’s decision-making, and letting the resulting AI asset remain with the user rather than the platform.

For creative workers concerned that automation may standardise their output, the proposition addresses a specific fear: that faster production can come at the cost of a recognisable voice. SCAFFOLD’s answer is to make that voice the thing being modelled and retained.

Food Alert has warned that hospitality businesses are facing a rise in AI-driven food fraud, and says it is already seeing cases in the UK.

Customers are using AI-generated images and AI-written complaint emails to seek refunds and compensation from restaurants, takeaways and other food operators. Some images appear to show mould, undercooked meat or foreign objects that were not present in the original meal.

The issue is becoming more acute as AI-generated material spreads online. Food Alert cited estimates that more than 34 million AI-generated images are now produced each day, while some complaint messages use legal language and references to regulators.

The pressure can be particularly strong for operators that rely on third-party delivery platforms. Refunds are often processed automatically by some platforms before the cost is passed on to the restaurant or takeaway involved.

That leaves food businesses dealing not only with the immediate cost of compensation, but also with the risk of reputational damage if images or allegations circulate more widely. Manufacturers and retailers may face similar risks if manipulated imagery is used to support false contamination claims.

“There have been instances where we’ve seen AI manipulation of images relating to foreign bodies or undercooked food complaints. We do think this is likely to increase, and we are aware that third-party aggregators reportedly receive a lot of suspicious complaints of this nature,” said Alasdair Dean, AI Lead, Food Alert.

Food Alert identified two main patterns in the complaints it is handling: fabricated photographic evidence and written complaints designed to intimidate businesses. Some complainants are using AI tools to draft emails that cite legislation and threaten to report operators to enforcement authorities, government agencies or legal representatives.

Annabel Kyle, Technical Director, Food Alert, described this as a growing part of the problem.

“A bigger trend for us is the use of AI to intimidate our food business clients and us in relation to food complaints,” said Kyle. “For example, if a guest disagrees with the outcome of their complaint, we will often receive an email that is clearly written with AI, quoting legislation and stating they will be reporting the matter to enforcement authorities, government agencies, legal representatives, and so on.”

Inspection risk

False complaints can have wider consequences if they are escalated to local authority officers. Even when an original allegation is fabricated, it can still prompt an Environmental Health Officer inspection.

Such visits may uncover unrelated issues at the premises, exposing businesses to regulatory action or harming their food hygiene rating. In sectors where hygiene scores are closely watched by customers and delivery partners, that can have commercial implications beyond the original complaint.

“Fraudulent complaints escalated to local authority EHO departments, whether through AI-generated images or intimidatory written correspondence, can trigger inspections. Even where the original complaint is fabricated, an inspection may uncover unrelated issues, creating real regulatory exposure. Repeated complaints on record can also, over time, affect a business’s food hygiene rating,” said Kyle.

Food Alert linked that risk to the cost of securing a new hygiene rating after problems are addressed. Its research found that 84% of local councils across England, Wales and Northern Ireland charge businesses for a food hygiene re-rating, with the average cost at £219.95.

Harder to spot

Identifying false complaints is likely to become more difficult as AI systems improve. Written complaints can still often be recognised because the language appears formulaic or unusually polished, but image-based claims are harder to verify.

That raises questions for food businesses handling large volumes of complaints and needing to distinguish quickly between genuine safety concerns and attempts to obtain refunds through manipulated evidence. Operators must still investigate every complaint seriously, adding to the burden on compliance and customer service teams.

“At the moment, email and written complaints are relatively easy to identify as AI language is currently fairly easy to distinguish. However, this is likely to change over time. Images are harder to spot, as while there are clues to look for, they are trickier to see. Again, these will become harder and harder to identify over time, and relatively rapidly,” said Dean.

Regulatory gap

Food Alert also argued that current UK law does not specifically address this type of AI-generated food complaint fraud. In its view, that leaves businesses exposed while regulation struggles to keep pace with the technology.

Kyle said the absence of clear legislation may encourage copycat behaviour by people who believe there is little risk in using AI tools to construct false claims.

“In the UK, there is currently nothing that governs the generation of images outside the intentional generation of sexually explicit images. This also means other people might see and hear of this type of fraud and the lack of legislation around it, and carry it out for themselves,” said Kyle.

Food Alert said businesses should tighten complaint investigation procedures, keep detailed food safety records and work more closely with delivery platforms when challenging suspicious refund requests. It added that operators should remain alert to possible manipulation without dismissing the possibility of genuine food safety incidents.