Hollywood glamour and big wins at 2026 LAPF Investments Awards. Excitement filled the air as attendees discovered the big winners at the 2026 LAPF Investments Awards, headline sponsored by Marsh. Held at the London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square, the great and the good from right across the LGPS were there on the night to celebrate the winners of the 25 awards categories, with some dramatic wins worthy of the evening's Hollywood theme. The evening started with a stirring performance on the bagpipes by LAPF Investments editor and DG Publishing managing director Brian Gielty. Guests were then left in stitches thanks to the comedic brilliance of the evening's host, Tim Vine. Among the night's standout winners was Border to Coast, which claimed two awards, including the prestigious Pool of the Year title and the Governance Innovation Award, sponsored by Marsh. Fellow pools LPPI and LGPS Central also celebrated success, taking home the Pool Governance Award and the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Award, respectively. West Midlands was another double winner on the night, taking home both the Best Approach to Local Investment award and the LGPS Investment Strategy of the Year award, sponsored by Natixis. Meanwhile, Surrey's Klaidas Vaidaugas impressed the judges to take home the Rising Star Award, marking him out as a name to watch in the sector. The prestigious LGPS Fund of the Year awards were claimed by the London Borough of Sutton in the assets under £3.5 billion category, and Essex in the assets over £3.5 billion category. Of course, the celebrations extended beyond LGPS funds and pools, with several leading service providers and investment firms also taking centre stage. Howden, Burges Salmon, T. Rowe Price and Marsh claimed the LGPS Service Provider of the Year, Law Firm of the Year, Emerging Markets Manager of the Year and Investment Advisory Service of the Year awards, respectively. CBRE Investment Management enjoyed a particularly strong night, taking home three awards: LGPS Fund Manager of the Year, Local Investment Manager of the Year, and Property Manager of the Year. The evening also provided an opportunity to recognise some of the sector's most dedicated individuals. Roger Phillips and Jill Davys (who has recently taken up a role at Redington) were also honoured with Judges' Awards in recognition of her contributions to the sector. The night closed with a celebration of Fiona Miller and Kevin McDonald, who stepped down from their roles at Border to Coast and ACCESS, respectively. With a host of worthy winners, well-deserved recognition and plenty of entertainment along the way, the 2026 LAPF Investments Awards proved to be a memorable celebration of the people and organisations helping shape the future of local government pension scheme investment.

We just closed an employee tender offer which values ElevenLabs at $22BN, up 2x from our Series D in February. The tender was led by Wellington and T. Rowe Price, and the growth is driven by demand from enterprises to deploy ElevenAgents across sales, support, and operations. In 2022, we raised our first round at a $9 million valuation, which we announced alongside Eleven v1, our first Text to Speech model, and the first model to generate human-level speech. Four years later, as we reach our new valuation, we just released two new state-of-the-art Text to Speech models. Eleven v4 and v4 Turbo are our fastest and most emotive models yet, and are leading independent benchmarks. Alongside models, we have built a full interaction platform for AI. It allows organizations to deploy conversational agents, connected to their knowledge and systems, that interact naturally in any industry, geography, or context. This shift is driving much of our growth, with enterprise now accounting for 55% of our revenue, as businesses adopt ElevenAgents to support their customers and employees. Our technology is now used in daily operations at five of the world’s ten largest tech companies, five of the ten largest insurers, and four of the ten largest telecoms. The round was co-led by Wellington Management and T. Rowe Price, along with participation from Goldman Sachs, GIC, Ontario Teachers'​ Pension Plan, EQT Group, Sapphire Ventures, and BDT & MSD Partners. And grateful for ongoing support from existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Alkeon Capital, The D. E. Shaw Group, Disruptive, Evantic Capital, ICONIQ, and Lightspeed. Most of all, this round is for the team that built the last four years. We're just getting started! | 89 comments on LinkedIn