Despite Christmas having a reputation for being a quiet time for fundraising, many founders will continue negotiating rounds over the holiday season.
With the colder weather and shorter days, many of us notice shifts in mood and energy levels. For me, winter often means feeling more tired, a need for more sleep, and less time outside – just as work and life seem to be at their busiest.
When it comes to building a sustainable business, the road from ideation to implementation can be challenging, tough, brutal, emotional… but also immensely rewarding. At Growth Studio, we’ve been fortunate to guide hundreds of startups through this journey, particularly through our work with the recent Amazon Sustainability Accelerator where we put these principles into real action (and for context, the startups we have worked with at Amazon have raised over £39 million in the past three years and increased their sales by over 700%).
The digital transformation of the UK’s immigration system will have consequences for employers and employees. Our clients are making sure they are up to speed with the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) and the eVisa. The ETA is an electronic form that visitors who don’t need to apply for a prior visa will now have to fill to visit the UK, while the eVisa is set to replace physical evidence of immigration status for accessing rights such as employment, rent, travel to the UK, health and welfare by the start of next year.
UK startups face a stark challenge: early-stage graduation rates, from Seed to Series A funding, have dropped dramatically from 12.5% in 2020 to just 4.5%. This trend highlights deep-set vulnerabilities in the UK’s startup ecosystem, compounded by a notable slowdown in new tech company incorporations. These shifts have serious implications for the UK’s ability to foster innovation and economic growth.
Get ready for a world where robots walk among us – and I’m not talking about your coffee-addicted co-workers on Monday mornings. As we approach 2025, the world of robotics is on the brink of a transformation that promises to reshape our daily lives and workplaces.
With registered company insolvencies the highest they have been for a decade, and 50% of new businesses failing within three years, many SMEs face financial trouble; to the point of having to fold. This usually comes down to finances. Many small business owners don’t have any accounting qualifications, may never have seen a cash flow statement before, or understand the nuances in respect of tax and VAT. Michael Steed, President of AAT (Association of Accounting Technicians), shares the ‘danger’ signs small businesses need to look out for which indicate they may be in difficulty, and what they can do if they find themselves in financial trouble.
Entrepreneurship often comes with a relentless drive to succeed, the weight of expectations, and the need to constantly be “on.” For many entrepreneurs, these pressures manifest as high-functioning anxiety, which is a state where outward appearances of success mask an internal struggle with overthinking, self-doubt, and chronic stress. It’s like building a business with the brakes on: progress is possible, but it’s slow, draining, and riddled with inefficiencies.
Tips and tricks from an investor, a startupper, and an event manager.
Crypto Quantique, a provider of quantum-driven security for the Internet of Things (IoT), has boosted the functionality of its semiconductor hardware security IP block, QDID, adding a true random number generator (TRNG) to the physical unclonable function (PUF). The PUF is inherently resilient against side-channel attacks because the source of entropy is quantum-derived, and seeds are read on demand.
Personalisation has become one of the most useful tools for business. It can help enhance customer service and experience and drive sales. However, with customers becoming increasingly protective of their data and businesses able to access so much of it, privacy also matters. So, how can businesses strike the balance between personalisation and privacy without crossing ethical lines?
According to new research from Dext, the bookkeeping automation platform provider, the UK’s small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) surveyed could be losing a staggering average of £742 every month from incorrect invoicing stemming from poor tracking of rechargeable expenses. With the UK home to over 5.5 million SMBs, the figures indicate up to a £1.1 billion monthly shortfall in the economy, signalling the need for a massive overhaul of outdated expense management practices.
Fintech is a relentless force of innovation, reshaping industries and challenging the status quo. At Intergiro, we’ve built our reputation on spotting trends early, embedding finance where it’s needed most, and delivering solutions that make workflows seamless.
The New Year offers a unique opportunity for startups to recalibrate, innovate, and plan for sustainable growth. Drawing insights from my column in 2024, here’s a list of New Year’s resolutions for founders and marketers to navigate the challenging yet rewarding startup to scaleup journey.
What do you think when you read about tech giants reducing their presence in a new sector? Many see it as a judgement on the industry itself, and not in a positive way. What hope do others have if established companies can’t make it?
Otterly.AI, the AI search monitoring solution for marketing teams and brands, has announced its launch from stealth with over 1,000 users, including notable names such as Skale, Downtown Ecommerce, and Videoloft.
Startups Magazine is excited to announce that we will once again be exhibiting at CES in Las Vegas, on the 7th-10th of January. If you’re attending the show, come by Stand 60311 at Eureka Park to pick up a copy of our Survival Guide, and have a chat with the team!
tiun, a fintech helping media providers to attract, engage and convert younger audiences, has announced a $2.5 million pre-seed funding round led by Founderful. The funds will kick-start their efforts to become Europe’s preferred way to pay for online media.
Today, Maria 01, the startup community in the Nordics, has announced that its member startups have raised over €1 billion in funding since the hub’s founding in 2016, according to recent member data.
Midlife women are disproportionately held back from founding socially responsible businesses due to competing household and financial demands, according to new research.
