“First they say you’re crazy, then they fight you and then all of a sudden, you change the world.” So said Elizabeth Holmes, the Theranos entrepreneur whose vision of a finger prick blood testing revolution ended up with investors losing millions and her imprisoned on an 11-year sentence for fraud.
Cino – the only real-time shared payment app that finally lets people pay together in a seamless, single transaction – has raised €3.5 million in Seed funding led by Balderton Capital. Connect Ventures also participated alongside leading angels, including Barney Hussey-Yeo (founder of Cleo). The funding will support Cino’s launch in the UK, where it already has a growing waitlist, and continued growth across Europe.
In today’s modern world we have countless daily interactions where we’re being served by a dazzling array of apps, websites, shops, and startups. From buying your morning latte at that artisan coffee shop on the corner, to snapping up a bargain top on the latest pre-loved fashion app or sending an invoice to a customer through your banking app.
A new gender and diversity index assessing the state of play for the European deeptech scene has been released, developed by the GENDEX project and funded by the EIC. The index is intended to identify gender diversity and inclusion gaps across the ecosystem and to offer actionable insights and recommendations for stakeholders to consider moving forward.
The UK has dropped to 18th place in PwC’s Women in Work Index, marking its worst ranking for workplace gender equality in ten years. A ‘sluggish’ pace in closing the gender pay gap and declining female workforce participation have pushed the UK further behind its peers, now ranking second-worst among G7 nations, behind Canada.
Needle, an AI-powered search and agent development platform, has raised $2.2 million seed funding in a round led by 468 Capital and Presight Capital. The funding will expand Needle’s engineering team, strengthen its core technology, and accelerate its go-to-market initiatives.
Generation Z business leaders are pioneering a new approach with purpose, profit, and personal wellbeing at the forefront of their business, according to new research by American Express and The Conduit, a collaborative impact community and members club.
Quantum Industries (QI), a startup in quantum secure communications for critical infrastructure, has announced the successful completion of its seed financing round, raising a total of $10 million in fresh capital.
South Summit and IE University have unveiled the new Advanced Entrepreneurship Program, aimed at supporting entrepreneurs in transforming their ideas into sustainable and scalable businesses. This initiative reinforces the collaboration between both institutions to foster the global entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem.
The startup differentiation problem: most startups believe that innovation means adding more features – a faster app, a smarter algorithm, a better design. But customers don’t buy features.
They buy transformation.
When I look back on my journey as an innovator, what strikes me most is not the “eureka” moments of invention but the quiet, persistent work of transforming ideas into tangible, industrialised solutions. It’s one thing to dream up a new technology in the lab, but it’s another to see it deployed at scale, solving real-world problems and making a measurable impact.
Fiverr announces the launch of Fiverr Go, an AI platform that fundamentally redefines the relationship between human creativity and artificial intelligence, enabling freelancers and creators to grow their business exponentially while retaining full creative rights.
The employment landscape in the UK is set to undergo significant changes in 2025. According to LinkedIn’s recent “Jobs on the Rise 2025” list, which highlights the 25 fastest-growing roles, new job opportunities are emerging rapidly. From Artificial Intelligence Engineers to Partnership Development Managers, advances in industries such as artificial intelligence (AI) and sustainability are driving the demand for new skills and creating job roles at an unprecedented rate.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has called for the UK to go “further and faster” on economic growth in the wake of recent market uncertainty. For businesses, particularly SMEs, this means navigating an increasingly complex financial landscape while tackling mounting challenges, from economic volatility to rising cyber risks. In turbulent times, one crucial yet often overlooked factor in securing sustainable growth is insurance.
When I started researching to write my book (Doubt~less, Do more) I found that I wasn’t the only one that had let self-doubt get in the way of what I wanted to build in my business and I knew that I wanted to help people to doubt themselves less and do more with their businesses. What I didn’t realise was, in writing the book I would have to really look at all the angles that doubt had got in my way in the past, and how I then had to move through this to build my own self-belief whilst I was writing the book.
Less than six months after securing €9.3 million in funding, Constellation Technologies & Operations (CTO) is delivering on its ambitions. The startup is developing a constellation of VLEO satellites to enable telecom operators to provide high-speed, low-latency internet access from space – just as they do today with terrestrial networks. CTO has unveiled its first regenerative operational payload, the Early Test.
In the digital age, we interact with countless applications, whether for personal, professional, or recreational purposes. Many of these applications appear consumer-oriented but are, in fact, B2B applications. By accessing healthcare services, payroll systems, or school management platforms, customers are using their provider’s applications (such as GP or employer) which is a business customer of a larger B2B application. B2B applications form an integral part of daily operations across various industries.
Starting a new business is an exciting journey. You have an idea, you have spotted a market opportunity and have the passion to take the business forward. However, the path to profitability and growth can be challenging, as highlighted by data showing a 26% increase in the number of startups that shut down in 2024 compared to the previous year.
“Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections or trying to anticipate corrections than has been lost in corrections themselves.” – Peter Lynch
HiBob has released its fourth annual Women in the Workplace report, revealing men’s perceptions of workplace equality are out-of-touch with reality.
