News

British Airways was last week fined £20m by the Information Commissioner’s Office over a data breach which saw the personal details of 400,000 of its customers being accessed by hackers.

Coronavirus lockdowns have boosted the nation’s love for UK small businesses, with 59% of Brits saying they now support local businesses more than previously. Research, commissioned by American Express and Small Business Saturday UK, underscores the huge role small firms have played in supporting their communities through lockdown, with many pivoting to offer people new products and services such as deliveries, takeaways and virtual consultations.

Authentic Vision, an Austrian-based technology startup that provides anticounterfeiting solutions, has announced that it has closed a $5m Series B funding round with Custos Privatstiftung Austria), Dolby Family Ventures (USA), Gronova Vision (UAE), TAKKT AG (Germany) and business angels.

Deci, the deep learning startup dedicated to transforming the AI lifecycle, has announced it has raised $9.1m in a seed round led by Israel-based VC firm Emerge and global VC fund Square Peg. The company is building an AI-based platform that can automatically craft robust, scalable, and efficient deep neural network solutions ready for production at scale. Deci aims to help AI practitioners build the next generation of deep learning models.

White Castle has announced plans to expand work with Miso Robotics – creators of the first autonomous grilling and frying kitchen assistant, Flippy – to target up to ten new locations (in addition to the initial testing location) following completion of their current pilot. The announcement comes following early results at one test location.

Cambridge Spark, the provider of data science and AI apprenticeships, has inducted more than 100 professionals in its latest cohort to undertake apprenticeships in data science, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).

Bring the spooky season to life by virtually gathering the team for fun activities during October. Even though this year’s celebrations will look a bit different, don’t let the restrictions of remote working stop the fun. Plan a virtual Halloween party and lead up to it with spooky but socially distanced activities to build suspense. Here, Employment Hero, who launched in the UK this week, has created some fun tips to help celebrate Halloween virtually this year.

A London-based business growth agency is so confident that it can create profitable social media advertising for clients, it is offering to run test social media video campaigns on behalf of interested companies free of charge.

Private equity firm, Grafton Capital has invested £7m into Third Financial, the fast growing, innovative investment platform and software provider. Grafton Capital’s investment takes it to majority ownership of the business, with £1.5m of fresh capital being injected onto the balance sheet.

Spike Global, a UK-based PropTech company, has grown it’s client list by an impressive 120% in the last 9 months, despite market difficulties. Alongside new clients, Spike is also expanding into new developments from existing clients including Wardian London, EcoWorld Ballymore’s residential led development in Canary Wharf.

Allica Bank has seen a surge in demand for new business lending since the national lockdown ended, and has just reached the joint milestone of issuing over £250m of approvals in principle in 2020, and over £100m in committed loan offers since June to established SMEs across the UK.

Eagle Genomics, a pioneer in applying network science to biology – particularly linked to the microbiome – has closed $9m in new scale-up funding. It will use the investment to further develop the capabilities of its powerful AI-augmented, knowledge discovery platform and to drive further commercial expansion across Europe and the US.

New research published by Sage plc and Capital Economics finds that unlocking SME digital investment will be critical in helping small and medium size businesses remain resilient as a wave of local lockdowns trigger ongoing uncertainty – and could also deliver major benefits to the UK economy.

New research from Tech Nation and Dealroom reveals that investment into UK impact startups increased 9.5x between 2014 and 2019. UK impact startups have raised €1.4bn so far in 2020 with Cleantech and Climate tech companies raising the most capital of all UK impact startups.

OurCrowd and SALT, a global thought leadership forum and networking platform encompassing finance, technology and geopolitics, will broadcast the SALT Talks: Pandemic Venture Investment Series online starting 29th October.

Vantage Health has announced the full-service launch of AI-powered referral platform, Rego. The first eRS compatible solution to be deployed in the NHS, Rego provides automated GP referrals in one efficient system, which reduces the complexity of outpatient pathway guidance and eliminates manual triage processes.

BrainBox AI has announced a deal with AMP Capital to deploy its Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology across the global investment management company’s entire managed real estate portfolio. AMP Capital, one of the largest investment managers in APAC, now becomes the first organisation in the world to install an autonomous AI HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) system across its managed real estate portfolio, which includes central business district office buildings, retail shopping centres and logistics facilities throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Quizlet, the global learning platform and app known for its engaging AI-powered revision tools, announces the launch of its GCSE Resource Centre – a new and completely free, comprehensive online bank of revision resources based on exam board specifications.

As parts of the UK continue to enter regional lockdown and Government incentives to support the economy start to peter out, SMEs across the country have been making the most of well-established Government schemes by claiming £5.1bn in R&D tax relief.