It’s a tough time for all businesses, but Manchester once again proves to be a hotspot for emerging new talent. Ambitious startup, The Shirt Society, has secured a substantial six figure investment from one of the city’s top tech investors: Scott Fletcher MBE.

Israel startup Rise.ai, which offers AI-driven customer re-engagement solutions, is making its gift cards available for purchase on Facebook and Instagram. This new feature will let small and medium businesses and enterprises (SMBs/SMEs) sell digital gift cards to their local community through Facebook and Instagram using the customers’ geo-location.

Purina has announced the first ever winners of the UNLEASHED accelerator lab programme. UNLEASHED is a unique initiative, run by the Purina Accelerator Lab, designed to combine R&D with personalised mentoring and a bespoke nurturing of each business. The winning cohort includes: BlueNalu Innovations, San Diego; BorrowMyDoggy, London; Natu, Barcelona; OneMind Dogs, Helsinki; and Petable, Lisbon.

One of the largest independent financial advisory and tech wealth organisations is to launch a first-of-its-kind on-boarding verification app amid 'soaring global demand' for fintech solutions.

Asto Business Capital loans are now available on the Funding Options platform as part of a long term partnership with the business finance marketplace. The Santander-backed app joins Funding Options’ roster of more than 200 lender partners, offering loans of as little as £150 or as much as £150,000, to help small businesses plug urgent cash flow holes.

The world is facing a mounting waste crisis and a South West technology startup has developed a new online system to help tackle the problem. The system will also help waste businesses run their businesses safely during the coronavirus pandemic.

The vision for Alexa is to set customers free to do more in life. To achieve this, Amazon is continuing to assist the growing number of startups and entrepreneurs working with voice technology.

In the last few months, COVID-19 has impacted businesses in profound ways. Throughout that time, I’ve heard from organizations, large and small, how they’re staying connected with customers through technology. This has always been core to my team’s purpose, but we can do more to help businesses and  nonprofits through this crisis.   

Centaur Robotics is the British technology company behind a pioneering personal electric vehicle, set to usher in a new era of personal mobility.

Start it X, the programme dedicated to driving innovation within large companies, announces the launch of a new matchmaking service. Start it X will help corporates innovate by connecting them to established scale-ups from all over the world. In doing so, the accelerator gives Belgian companies faster access to innovations developed in other countries while positioning the Benelux as a highly attractive region for trade.

Demand for digital agility and visibility during uncertain times fuels the hyper growth of native Salesforce DevOps platform backed by international investment leaders.

European challenger bank bunq today joins forces with global charities to aid its mission to make the world a better place. Following a public beta programme, which saw bunq ask its users to share their insights and to test its new app before rolling out to the masses, bunq is now unveiling ‘Common Goals’.

Lipreading-friendly face masks, digital medical services and contact-free ATM buttons among winning business entries to The AdamStart COVID-19 Innovation Challenge, as British entrepreneur Adam Bradford has revealled the five winners of the AdamStart global entrepreneurial challenge to tackle COVID-19.

The number of people on UK payrolls dropped by 612,000 between March and May, according to early data from the Office for National Statistics and HM Revenue and Customs that is starting to show the depth of the hit to the economy from the pandemic. The UK unemployment rate for the three months to April 2020 was estimated at 3.9%, 0.1 percentage points higher than a year earlier but largely unchanged on the previous quarter.

Lone Design Club is leading the charge for independent designers in the evolution of the high street, as well as the reaction to the challenges now facing small businesses brought about by COVID-19, by going 'phygital'.

Personalised health management platform, Span, has announced the launch of its new subscription-based business offering to help employees prevent and reduce symptoms of lifestyle-induced conditions - Diabetes, Hypertension, Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, Obesity and IBS. The platform offers personalised, continuous nutrition and mental wellbeing plans and on-demand consultations with clinicians.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire can now benefit from fully-funded University of Nottingham expertise through a programme which has been re-purposed to help businesses prepare for economic recovery following COVID-19.

The Tech to Connect Challenge was launched in the summer of 2019, in order to develop early-stage ideas for technology that enable more or better interactions between people. The challenge looked for the most innovative ideas, helping them turn these ideas into prototypes that have the potential for real change.

Over half (55%) of SMEs believe that their competitors have a better digital presence than they do, according to new research by leading creative agency, Sparkloop. 

Quickly responding to the impact COVID-19 and lockdowns are having on tech startups, Capital Enterprise has collaborated with OneTech and Mindful Team, with support from J.P. Morgan, to launch the Startup Resilience programme. Over six months, startup founders will be provided everything from webinars and community slack channels, to mastermind sessions and accountability groups, to be helped through this period of uncertainty.