Catalyst brought 40 UK and Irish venture capital firms to Belfast last week, for its annual Inbound Investors event, to meet and hear from 50 fast-growing Northern Ireland startup and scaleup companies.
A mother-daughter perspective on AI’s impact on future careers.
Launching a new business is exhilarating – the energy, the creativity, the vision of building something that’s uniquely yours. But the statistics are sobering. According to ONS data, around one in five UK businesses fail within the first year, and nearly half don’t make it to their fifth birthday.
Striking out on your own to launch a rival tech business could be one of the most exciting but also daunting times of your career. The temptation will be to hand in your notice, fire up your laptop, and start calling prospective clients.
After a run of double-digit growth, many founders look to bank the momentum and exit. Increasingly, however, others are turning to Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs). For these leaders, the priority is building a company that can sustain growth and stay true to its values. In today’s volatile market, independence matters, and so does a culture that helps teams adapt without compromising standards. An EOT provides both: it secures that independence while keeping long-term goals at the centre of decision-making.
After spending 15 years leading teams in one of the UK’s largest retailers, I made the bold decision to put everything into my dream: becoming a full-time magician and speaker. On 4th April 2020, I took redundancy – ready to launch the business I had been quietly building for years.
YASO has raised £8.25 million in a Series A investment round led by Puma Growth Partners, a leading provider of growth capital to scale-up businesses.
Away from the pomp and pageantry of Donald Trump’s State Visit to the UK, there was real progress made on business. The record-breaking £150 billion Tech Prosperity Deal of US investment in the UK rightly grabbed a lot of attention. This is the largest-ever single package of commercial investment linked to a State Visit.
The venture capital market, shaped by US norms, has a persistent inefficiency: capital allocation is…
In today’s fast-moving tech world, customer and user data is no longer optional, it’s essential. How a business interprets, contextualises, and applies this data often determines whether it accelerates or stalls. The companies that succeed are those that don’t just react to change, but anticipate it through intelligent, data-led decision-making.
In the world of sports and entertainment travel, where customers are investing not just their money but also their dreams of unforgettable experiences, trust is everything. Trust is something you cannot place a value on, it’s the foundation on which long-lasting customer relationships are built. Without it, even the most sophisticated booking systems or flashy marketing campaigns fall flat, particularly in an industry where competition is rife.
Seapoint has raised $3 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Frontline Ventures, with participation from Tapestry VC and the ex-COOs of Stripe, Revolut, Tide, and Tines. After nine months of building, the team has launched a private beta that is now being used by dozens of VC-backed startups. Startups across the UK and Europe can now sign up for the beta program at seapoint.co.
electronRx, a digital medicine and biomarker company driving healthcare through pulmonary innovation, has announced that it will launch pDx. The pDx app offers chronic respiratory disease (CRD) patients a cardiopulmonary assessment device, engineered to medical grade standards, to measure lung function at home using a mobile phone, laptop, or tablet.
UK-based robotics and AI company Humanoid has launched HMND 01 Alpha, the country’s first humanoid robot for industrial use. Built in just seven months, Alpha represents the fastest humanoid development cycle in history.
A new, outcomes-focused initiative will support 150 startups led by entrepreneurs from traditionally overlooked groups across the UK to raise investment and scale. Launched by a consortium of award-winning organisations, the programme replaces fragmented efforts with a joined-up national solution designed to deliver real funding outcomes.
Panasonic Industry Europe announces a strategic collaboration with FISEGO Holding.
Running a small business is rewarding, but demanding. From serving customers to managing cashflow and dealing with economic uncertainty, you are constantly juggling different demands and roles. The daily grind can also make it easy to forget about your accomplishments, and our latest research shows fewer than half (43%) of small businesses regularly get the opportunity to pause and celebrate their wins.
A singular theme didn’t dominate the month of August in European tech ventures. What happened instead was a clear set of parallel shifts becoming more apparent. Moves in geographies, sectors, and funding models represented a reorganisation tipping point in the market.
Since its UK launch in April 2023, Temu has quickly made a name for itself. Last year it was the most downloaded iPhone app in the UK App Store and it’s getting a great reception from its users.
Once an afterthought in most transactions – except in pure technology acquisitions – intellectual property (IP) is moving to the centre of deal-making. Software, data, and AI shape nearly every product and service, and the know-how, data sets, and IP rights behind them increasingly determine whether a deal delivers its growth story.
