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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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).

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.

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.

The Venture Capital Trust Association (VCTA) has published new data gathered from over 600 early-stage companies that have benefited from VCT funding, which shows that deployment of capital into early-stage startups grew 8% year-on-year to £664 million, proving resilient in context of wider UK venture capital funding, which fell by almost a quarter (23%) in 2022.

Everest Assets Group (EAG) has launched a £5 million growth fund to empower a new generation of cybersecurity and IT scaleups.

In times of economic uncertainty, female-led businesses can be particularly vulnerable. A lack of awareness of the funding options available and a reluctance to take on debt, coupled with the impact of the lending gap, makes it harder for female founders to secure funding to increase working capital or seek growth in turbulent times.

Big tech was back in fashion for investors in Q2, according to the latest analysis from smart money app Plum.