Flexa is very excited to announce that they have successfully raised £250,000 from a consortium of international and domestic investors, including renowned angel investors Simon Franks and Douglas Choi. The round is being led by venture capital firm, QVentures. The funds will be used to support the scaling up of Flexa’s flexible working platform.

As parts of the UK continue to enter regional lockdown and Government incentives to support the economy start to peter out, SMEs across the country have been making the most of well-established Government schemes by claiming £5.1bn in R&D tax relief.

Quizlet, the global learning platform and app known for its engaging AI-powered revision tools, announces the launch of its GCSE Resource Centre - a new and completely free, comprehensive online bank of revision resources based on exam board specifications.

New research from Tech Nation and Dealroom reveals that investment into UK impact startups increased 9.5x between 2014 and 2019. UK impact startups have raised €1.4bn so far in 2020 with Cleantech and Climate tech companies raising the most capital of all UK impact startups.

New research published by Sage plc and Capital Economics finds that unlocking SME digital investment will be critical in helping small and medium size businesses remain resilient as a wave of local lockdowns trigger ongoing uncertainty - and could also deliver major benefits to the UK economy.

Allica Bank has seen a surge in demand for new business lending since the national lockdown ended, and has just reached the joint milestone of issuing over £250m of approvals in principle in 2020, and over £100m in committed loan offers since June to established SMEs across the UK.

Spike Global, a UK-based PropTech company, has grown it’s client list by an impressive 120% in the last 9 months, despite market difficulties. Alongside new clients, Spike is also expanding into new developments from existing clients including Wardian London, EcoWorld Ballymore’s residential led development in Canary Wharf.

Private equity firm, Grafton Capital has invested £7m into Third Financial, the fast growing, innovative investment platform and software provider. Grafton Capital’s investment takes it to majority ownership of the business, with £1.5m of fresh capital being injected onto the balance sheet.

Cambridge Spark, the provider of data science and AI apprenticeships, has inducted more than 100 professionals in its latest cohort to undertake apprenticeships in data science, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).

A London-based business growth agency is so confident that it can create profitable social media advertising for clients, it is offering to run test social media video campaigns on behalf of interested companies free of charge.

Bring the spooky season to life by virtually gathering the team for fun activities during October. Even though this year’s celebrations will look a bit different, don’t let the restrictions of remote working stop the fun. Plan a virtual Halloween party and lead up to it with spooky but socially distanced activities to build suspense. Here, Employment Hero, who launched in the UK this week, has created some fun tips to help celebrate Halloween virtually this year.

White Castle has announced plans to expand work with Miso Robotics - creators of the first autonomous grilling and frying kitchen assistant, Flippy - to target up to ten new locations (in addition to the initial testing location) following completion of their current pilot. The announcement comes following early results at one test location.

Deci, the deep learning startup dedicated to transforming the AI lifecycle, has announced it has raised $9.1m in a seed round led by Israel-based VC firm Emerge and global VC fund Square Peg. The company is building an AI-based platform that can automatically craft robust, scalable, and efficient deep neural network solutions ready for production at scale. Deci aims to help AI practitioners build the next generation of deep learning models.

Authentic Vision, an Austrian-based technology startup that provides anticounterfeiting solutions, has announced that it has closed a $5m Series B funding round with Custos Privatstiftung Austria), Dolby Family Ventures (USA), Gronova Vision (UAE), TAKKT AG (Germany) and business angels.

Coronavirus lockdowns have boosted the nation’s love for UK small businesses, with 59% of Brits saying they now support local businesses more than previously. Research, commissioned by American Express and Small Business Saturday UK, underscores the huge role small firms have played in supporting their communities through lockdown, with many pivoting to offer people new products and services such as deliveries, takeaways and virtual consultations.

British Airways was last week fined £20m by the Information Commissioner’s Office over a data breach which saw the personal details of 400,000 of its customers being accessed by hackers.

HR and people management platform Employment Hero has today announced its expansion into the UK market, following impressive growth and success in its home market. Looking to empower small businesses and their employees as they transition into a new way of post-COVID working, the company has also announced its expansion into Singapore, Malaysia and New Zealand today.

Founded in 2014, Hatch has been on a mission to increase diversity in entrepreneurship and has been shining the spotlight on diverse women-led businesses ever since.

The European Startup Festival 2020 is an online, warm-hearted, diverse annual event of the European Startup Association to celebrate an inspiring community of entrepreneurs and investors to interact with all the stakeholders of a borderless startup ecosystem. It will take place between 16th and 21st November 2020 during the Global Entrepreneurship Week.