FemTech Lab - Europe’s first independent accelerator that helps the rising stars of FemTech take their products to market - has announced its carefully-selected spring 2021 cohort of startups within the women’s healthcare and wellbeing space.

After another record-breaking year, in which VC investment surpassed more than €38bn in Europe, Dealroom has released its annual ranking of the Most Prominent Venture Capital Investors for 2021 - and this time, it’s gone global. 

Influencer marketing. An ideal channel for a brand looking to raise awareness and grow its consumer base, but can influencer marketing work in a B2B setting? According to Yorkshire-based tech startup, socialsendr, yes it can, with the business seeing an immediate increase in platform sign ups following a campaign with a nano influencer on TikTok. 

Guess who is back, back again with bigger and better plans than before. The Hustle Awards is returning for 2021, with a super exciting hybrid format, so not only does this mean we plan to actually network and celebrate with some of you in person; if that does not sound as exhilarating to you as it does to us, you can still enjoy this year’s awards from the comfort of your own home!

The past year has demonstrated how important deeptech innovation is to solving some of the greatest challenges faced today, from finding vaccine candidates for the COVID-19 pandemic through to solving climate change and transforming healthcare. The UK’s deeptech sector is a critical part of the Government’s post-Brexit ambition for the UK to become a global ‘Science Superpower’. 

Digital transformation means many things to many people, so it’s important to segment and analyse startups developing foundational enabling technologies as well as key impacted applications, such as Industry 4.0 and digital health. Lux Research’s digital transformation experts are continuously monitoring industry megatrends and events to identify innovative startups in the space.

Edtech marketplace, Preply, has secured an additional $35m of funding, a sum that exceeds the platform’s cumulative fundraising efforts since 2013. The round was co-led by Owl Ventures and Full In Partners, with participation from previous investors Point Nine Capital, Hoxton Ventures, as well as EduCapital, All Iron, Diligent Capital and Evli Growth Partners.

A North-East based fintech firm has been launched with the aim of digitally transforming the way private equity firms, venture capital funds and angel investment networks currently manage the end-to-end investment process.

Ibex Medical Analytics, the pioneer in AI-powered cancer diagnostics, has announced a $38m Series B financing round led by Octopus Ventures and 83North, with additional participation from aMoon, Planven Entrepreneur Ventures and Dell Technologies Capital, the corporate venture arm of Dell Technologies, bringing total funding of Ibex to $52m.

Loui Blake, serial entrepreneur and angel investor, invests in Embargo loyalty app and joins as an advisor following the tech startup’s significant growth during COVID-19.

University of Bristol spin-out CytoSeek has raised a £3.5m seed round to develop new cell therapies to treat solid tumours in cancer patients. The funding is led by Science Creates Ventures (SCV), Bristol’s new deep tech EIS fund for science and engineering startups, and is the firm’s first investment since announcing its venture capital fund last December.

Cleantech engineering firm, Sunswap has recently secured half a million pounds in crowdfunding that will be used to rapidly scale the business and deploy their zero-emission TRU technology on the roads by the end of 2021. 

The first national UK lockdown was announced one year ago on 23rd March, bringing with it social distancing restrictions that required physical office and store closures across the UK, changing the course of thousands of small businesses.

The fourth edition of ChangeNOW has announced digital broadcasting from Paris and other live locations worldwide. A significant milestone for the planet, with the online streaming of inspiring content and meetings of impact actors, to create a global momentum of multi-stakeholder collaboration on our century’s issues.

Many of us have faced work challenges due to the long term restrictions implemented as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, with unemployment estimated to be at its highest since 2016 at 4.9%.

Global online sales grew 27.6% in 2020 to reach $4.28tn and the number of transactions needing customer support increased from one-in-eight to one-in-six. In response, eCommerce customer service specialist, eDesk is supercharging support for its 23,000 agents with AI advancements, expediting the company product roadmap.

Tech Nation has announced the release of its annual Tech Nation Report, the ultimate state-of-the-nation report on the UK tech sector. In its seventh year, the report lifts the lid on tech in an extraordinary 2020, revealing how the sector has changed, who the top performers were through the year, and the challenges and opportunities the UK faces as it navigates out of the pandemic and leaving the EU.

Sure Valley Ventures, the venture capital firm that invests in early stage software companies, has announced that it has led a Seed investment round of £1m for Polience Limited (“PreCog”), a security solution platform company that is able to provide data intelligence to combat crime, terrorism and protect vulnerable people.

CareLineLive, the all-in-one home care management software that increases efficiency, capacity, compliance and communication of both managers and carers by digitising their work flows, has announced that it has secured a £175k grant from the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK.