Xero, the global small business platform, has opened applications for its inaugural Xero Beautiful Business Fund, designed to celebrate small businesses and help accelerate their growth. The initiative is now open for submissions with more than £360,000 in funding available globally.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are finding it increasingly hard to access funding from high street banks, new data from fintech firm iwoca reveals.

"Gaining entry into an accelerator's funding program requires startups to possess a combination of qualities, which collectively reveal a business that has the potential to thrive in a competitive and rapidly changing business landscape," writes Dr Yousef Alhammadi, Executive Director of The Abu Dhabi Early Childhood Authority (ECA).

DRUID, a global player in conversational AI technology, has announced its successful $30 million Series B led by TQ Ventures, with participation from new investors Smedvig Capital, Endeavor, and Verve Ventures, and existing investors GapMinder, Hoxton Ventures and Karma Ventures.

Simply Business, one of the UK’s largest providers of small business insurance, has launched its annual Business Boost competition, which will award a £25,000 cash prize to the winner.

A government backed loan scheme created to help entrepreneurs start and scale up their business has now provided over £1 billion of funding to over 100,000 businesses.

Turquoise, the UK merchant bank specialising in energy, environment and efficiency, has announced a follow-on investment by Low Carbon Innovation Fund 2 (LCIF2) in SKOOT ECO GROUP. This forms part of a £1.1 million capital raising round for the startup which will fuel SKOOT’s growth as it also announces its first one million trees planted.

Securing funds in the early stages is often challenging for startups. Hundreds of startups are on a similar journey. In a bustling ecosystem of software technology where SaaS startups are sprouting, it can be tough to seek venture capital, get a loan, find angel investors, or even bootstrap.

DKK Partners, a Frontier Markets FinTech company which specialises in emerging markets (EM) and foreign exchange (FX) liquidity has announced the successful closing of their pre-seed funding raise, totalling £3 million, prior to Series B set to take place at the beginning of 2024.

A contraction in VC funding and non-existent IPO market will stimulate an M&A resurgence for growth-stage European deep tech companies, according to Oliver Warren, Associate at DAI Magister.

Financial wellbeing startup Mintago has closed a $4.75 million funding round to further enhance its platform and accelerate its growth across the UK.

Startup founders come from a variety of diverse backgrounds and experiences, yet the majority of VC funding is consistently being awarded to white male founders. This is Venture Capital funding’s biggest issue, and it’s harming and discouraging founders from diverse backgrounds.

It’s become almost de rigueur to see entrepreneurs talk about landing an angel investor, their latest funding round or a crowdfunding campaign. Modern businesses have more financing opportunities open to them than ever before, but this can leave a lot of would-be entrepreneurs thinking the only way to success is through outside investment.

Resourcify, the waste-management and recycling platform, has raised €14 million Series A funding, signalling confidence in its business model of reducing companies’ waste and promoting a circular economy.

Securing investment for your scaleup is a major step, signalling new growth and potential for your business. While the prospect of taking the exhilarating step of financing your scaleup is exciting, the challenge of winning over investors remains critical. In the current climate, it can be difficult to compete with other startups and businesses for investor trust.

The visibility and number of successful female founders has come a long way over the past two decades, but the funding gap remains the biggest challenge for women in business and is key to unlocking the UK’s economic potential.

New research from Shojin has found that over half (57%) of UK investors are confident that the worst of the economic turbulence from the past 18 months has now passed.

Over 10,000 SME owners, self-employed and budding entrepreneurs have applied for a single £25,000 Business Boost grant from insurer Simply Business, as the current economic climate takes a toll on small businesses.

HyperSpace, the multi-brand entertainment attractions developer that is building entertainment parks and proprietary technology to create the future of physical-to-digital experiences, has announced the closing of a $55 million Series A financing round led by Galaxy Interactive.

Laverock Therapeutics, established in 2021 to commercialise the gene editing-induced gene silencing (GEiGS) platform for all human therapeutic applications, is pleased to announce that it has expanded its seed funding round to £13.5 million.