Startups

Secto Design has made a significant investment in startup company Paptic. “Until recently, Secto Design has purely invested in developing its own production. However, Paptic has such a meaningful goal and it fits perfectly to our own philosophy, that we had to jump along,” said Tuula Jusélius, the Founder of Secto Design.

From a young age Olivia Higgs, always knew she wanted to be an entrepreneur. Although initially it was more of a dream to own a boutique hotel, rather than being the Co-founder of NAVA, an app that enables users to explore cities in a personalised way whilst supporting local independent business owners, but it was through her interest in artificial intelligence that she found herself here.

Cazoo, the UK’s fastest growing digital business which is transforming the way we buy used cars, has today joined the exclusive list of companies known as unicorns, with valuations in excess of $1bn. Founded 18 months ago by serial entrepreneur Alex Chesterman and having launched only 6 months ago, Cazoo is now the fastest British business ever to have reached the rare and coveted unicorn status.

With recent news showing the British economy shrunk by 20.4% in April, several business owners are concerned about whether their businesses will recover and what the ‘new normal’ will look like. Here we chat to Pete Reis-Campbell, CEO and Founder of Kaizen, who discusses how he navigated the pandemic why remote working is the future for many companies.

AI tech startup Greyparrot has raised £1.825m to tackle the growing waste crisis by introducing digitisation and automation to recycling. The round was led by Speedinvest, a leading early-stage industrial tech investor, with participation from Force Over Mass.

As we live through the most connected time in history, its clear to see that data plays a huge role in many businesses. It’s what keeps businesses running smoothly, so naturally it needs to be of the highest quality. But what are the most reliable sources? Customer feedback is at the top of most businesses lists. Customers certainly won’t hesitate to tell you what they like or dislike about your product or service. But how can we use all this information? Can conversations with call centres or an online chatbot harvest all the value from these conversations?

Paul Landau, Founder and CEO of Careology, started his entrepreneurial journey back in 2005. Before tracking steps was cool and when wearable technology was just beginning to emerge, he created a healthtech company which tracked its users’ fitness levels, sleep, aerobic steps and calories burned.

Pioneering smart technology for women with the world’s first silent wearable breast pump and the world’s smartest and smallest kegel trainer.

Echo is an online NHS pharmacy which allows patients to order prescriptions directly to their door – and during COVID this has been invaluable for people who are self-isolating and can’t risk a trip to bricks-and-mortar pharmacies for the sake of their health. Ana Maria Ciubotaru, Operations Manager at Echo spoke to Startups Magazine about how the team have had to work extraordinarily hard, shifting dispensing and dispatching operations to 24 hours a day, six days a week.

If I was to tell you that water is the most used material in the world, I doubt you’d be surprised. However, if I asked you what material comes second in that list you may be left scratching your head. Plastic? Copper? Carbon Fibre? Good guesses all. However, you’d be wrong – it’s actually concrete.

The founders of Bulb, a green gas and electricity supplier, met five years ago when they were both working in the energy industry and disillusioned with the way the industry treats its customers and how much businesses were charging for renewable energy. Hayden Wood and Amit Gudka are aiming to make the industry better with Bulb by making energy simpler, cheaper and greener.

We’ve all seen ultrasound images, undoubtedly so if you’re a parent. And while the technology is used for a multitude of other healthcare-related reasons, the procedure has traditionally been the same, involving the patient having to pay a visit to a hospital. However, this could be about to change with the growth of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS). Here, Startups Magazine speaks to Nevada Sanchez, Co-Founder of Butterfly Network, a company pioneering such technology.

ÜberEnergy develops artificial intelligence algorithms that predict energy requirements for residential and commercial buildings. The artificial intelligence engine uses information such as weather patterns and forecasts, current indoor and outside temperature, human building occupancy, electrical usage patterns, along with a myriad of other data points collected by the system to produce predictions of future energy consumption requirements.

Waste not, want not. OLIO is the world’s first and currently the only neighbour-to-neighbour food sharing app to help ensure no food goes to waste.

Most of us want to do our bit to save the planet. We’re aware of the ongoing risk of climate change. We’ve all watched David Attenborough’s Blue Planet documentary, and we’ve watched the Facebook videos of our oceans filled with plastic, and our sea life swimming amongst dozens of empty drink cans. But after seeing these saddening sites, do we actually try to do anything about it?

Indorse is a Coding Assessment Platform for recruiting, hackathons and upskilling. It leverages a community of leading software developers spread across the globe to assess coding skills and tech capabilities. We spoke to Gaurang Torvekar, Co-Founder and CEO of Indorse who did a Q and A with Startups Magazine about the current climate for Indorse.

When the UK government first told people to stay indoors and ordered gyms and clinics to close, it was hard to imagine how personal trainers, physiotherapists or coaches could survive. But sometimes difficult times can inspire innovation which shapes the future.

During his training, Dr Maroof Ahmed saw the significant impact smoking had on patients and wanted to do something about it.