Being a founder or working as part of a startup is challenging – raising funds, hiring an unstoppable team, and launching a new product or service are all up there. But there’s one area that’s often like kryptonite, for even the most confident business leaders – external communications. The elevator pitch sounded great in your head but then you spoke to that important journalist and your message went up in smoke. 

Constructive Bio, a forerunner in synthetic genomics, has announced the successful first close of its Series A financing, raising $58 million and bringing its total funding to $75 million.

Challenger credit reference agency Infact has announced the completion of a £4 million seed funding round, following its recent authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to create the first real-time credit bureau tailored for the digital financial services sector.

Construction tech startup Automated Architecture (AUAR) is expanding into the US, shipping its first two robotic micro-factories across the Atlantic. These portable factories, the first of their kind, will be utilised by real estate developer Rival Holdings to construct thousands of sustainable, affordable homes in the Midwest.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most transformational technologies of our generation, tackling some of humanity’s most challenging problems, augmenting human performance, and maximising productivity. A research study from Strand Partners and commissioned by Amazon Web Services, showed that the number of UK companies adopting AI has increased by 31% from 2022 to 2023. Thanks to the acceleration in AI adoption, digital technology could add £520 billion to the UK economy by 2030, up from £413 billion in 2022.

New research from Towergate Health & Protection reveals that 44% of employers are not tailoring their benefits to meet the diverse demographics of their workforce, despite receiving requests for more targeted support.

The Kluz Prize for PeaceTech was awarded in New York City on 20th September, with Aerobotics7 securing the top honour of the evening. Hosted by The GovLab at New York University, the event recognised trailblazing innovations in the field of PeaceTech.

The communication app, emotii, is making strides as a trusted translation tool for businesses worldwide with its recent integration into popular platforms like Microsoft Teams and Slack.

A year ago, I transitioned my fortnightly newsletter The Conversation’s to Substack. I invest a lot of time and energy in my newsletter, on thoughtful marketing, PR and creative business, and I wanted to give it a life beyond inboxes – to offer it a place it could breathe and grow.

The SEMICON Taiwan expo saw a strong presence from the UK this month, showcasing the country's technological advancements on a global stage. The British Office in Taipei coordinated the participation of 24 UK innovators, while the UK-APAC Tech Growth Programme organised 31 high-level meetings for seven of these companies.

Small businesses across the UK are seeing revenue on the rise, driven by a notable surge in ecommerce, according to QuickBooks Small Business Insights – a quarterly report examining small business trends in the US, Canada, UK, and Australia.

Hushed hybrid is a workplace phenomenon sweeping the nation, involving some of the UK’s biggest companies such as Barclays, Tesco, and Dell Technologies. However, HR managers warn hushed hybrid encourages insubordination and could lead to isolation if team members are not treated equally. Here, Kristian Torode, Director and Co-Founder of specialist IT services provider Crystaline, explains how investing in suitable telecommunications systems can help your business avoid the trend’s consequences.

Oxford-based startup FluoRok has secured £7.7 million in an oversubscribed funding round to accelerate its scaleup, manufacturing, and commercialisation of cutting-edge fluorochemical reagents and battery electrolyte salts.

The past few years have pushed many small businesses across the UK to breaking point. A harmful combination of rising costs, reduced funding, and increasingly delayed payments has made cash flow management a more pressing concern than it has been in recent memory.

The UK is grappling with a quiet burnout epidemic that is eroding the mental health of our workforce and harming productivity. And it’s getting worse.