Manchester Angels, the North's premier angel network, has announced participation in two pre-seed funding rounds for early-stage UK technology companies: Doris Labs, a London-based semantic layer platform for go-to-market teams, and Ghost Shift, a Manchester-headquartered cybersecurity startup. The announcement confirms Manchester Angels now has a portfolio of 22 deals.

Doris Labs Raises £450,000 in Pre-Seed Round

Doris Labs has closed a $600,000 (approximately £450,000) pre-seed funding round, led by Fuel Ventures with participation from Manchester Angels and a group of angel investors from the B2B software sector.

The company, founded by Hayden Munt (formerly at Vertice) and Frazer Kearl (formerly at Patsnap), is building what it describes as a semantic layer for sales and go-to-market teams. The platform consolidates information from calls, emails, documents and CRM systems into a structured business graph, and is launching a product called Sidekicks—AI partners designed to support individual deals with persistent memory and automated routines.

Early deployment data suggests material impact: Doris claims sales representatives have saved six hours of admin work per week, with deal velocity increasing by 72%. Patent platform Patently, used by over 1,000 teams across 40 countries, reported that deals closing within forecast timeline increased by 165% following Doris adoption.

Hayden Munt, co-founder and CEO, said: "We've seen it so many times that each deal is treated as if it is siloed from the rest of the GTM – this doesn't and shouldn't have to be the case. The answer to any deal is there, just no one knows how to find it – Doris does."

David Levine, Principal at Manchester Angels, added: "Doris caught our attention with a unique approach and credible plan for a huge market. What sealed it was that each angel in our group could point to a moment at their own company where Doris would have made a real difference. That made the investment an easy decision."

Ghost Shift Secures £250,000 Pre-Seed Plus UKRI Match

Manchester Angels has also backed Ghost Shift in a pre-seed round that closed at £250,000. The round was led for Manchester Angels by chairman Richard Fallon, who chairs the network's Cyber sub-group, and included co-investors Cambridge Angels, Ante-Bellum Angels, and Halceon.

The investment unlocked a further £215,000 in matched funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), bringing total capital secured by Ghost Shift to £465,000.

Ghost Shift, based in Manchester, operates at the intersection of intelligence, influence, and technology. The company's leadership has delivered operations for the UK Intelligence Community and law enforcement alongside international partners, with more than twenty years' combined experience in those domains.

Tom Sefton-Collins, co-founder and CEO, commented: "Ghost Shift was founded around a simple belief: the information environment has become an operational domain in its own right, but the capabilities available to organisations operating within it haven't kept pace. This investment allows us to accelerate on two fronts. We're building the operational capability and team required to scale what we already know works, while investing in the R&D that will underpin what comes next. Manchester has an extraordinary history of computing, intelligence and innovation. Building the next generation of information capability backed by Manchester investors feels very appropriate."

The UKRI funding supports an R&D programme exploring how emerging AI techniques, including inverse learning, can enhance Ghost Shift's next-generation technology stack.

Manchester Angels' Portfolio and Investment Approach

The network's membership comprises exited technology founders and operators, who conduct member-led diligence and draw on operational experience across their assessment process.

Richard Fallon's chairmanship and leadership of the Cyber sub-group reflects the network's strategic focus on cybersecurity and intelligence. Fallon exited his previous business, Manchester data intelligence firm Naimuri, to QinetiQ in 2020—a background that informs the network's cyber investment thesis.

The two investments span both Manchester-based and London-based companies, with Ghost Shift headquartered in Manchester and Doris Labs in London.