With World Cancer Day taking place on Tuesday 4 February 2025, Towergate Employee Benefits is alerting global employers to the different and evolving approaches to cancer care around the world and advising employers that they must adapt support. 

Fimple, a provider of flexible, cloud-native core banking software, has raised $12 million in its Series A funding round. The investment, led by DN Capital and Smartfin, saw continued participation from existing investors, including Albaraka Portfolio and Tera Portfolio.

Cloudhouse, a company in application compatibility and cloud enablement, has reported a sharp increase in enquiries from large organisations seeking guidance on Microsoft Teams and legacy technology upgrades.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of sustainability, startups face unique challenges and opportunities. The UK government has intensified efforts to decarbonise the nation’s electricity system through substantial investments in low-carbon infrastructure. Here we discuss the opportunity for startups to gain access to this investment.

Puma Growth Partners has led a $4.3 million investment into legal and financial technology specialist, Semeris.

86% of data collection professionals believe AI adoption in web scraping saves time and resources as the demand for web intelligence continues to rise. This is one of the key findings from the new Oxylabs white paper, Meeting the Increasing Business Demand for Web Intelligence, which demonstrates the growth and impact of web intelligence solutions.

iplicit, the cloud accounting software platform purpose-built for the UK mid-market, has announced a £25 million investment from technology growth investor One Peak. This new investment marks iplicit’s first external institutional funding round and will be used to significantly accelerate iplicit’s product development and fuel its exponential growth.

The creator economy has recently become a very promising field, and by 2030, it is predicted to reach a half-trillion worth. Given this, it becomes unsurprising that many startups are willing to enter this dynamic area. However, it is quite different from the other sectors,  with a tailored approach as a top requirement for working with creators and ensuring their trust.

The Female Advisory Board (FAB), the UK’s first all-female peer advisory group, has launched FAB Enterprise to help female-led businesses with a turnover of £3 million+ to accelerate growth. Building on the success of its FAB Scale and FAB Grow groups, the Yorkshire-based company continues its mission to unite like-minded business leaders, offering a collaborative space to support, challenge, and learn from shared experiences.

Recently, competition in the AI sector has been heating up, and it has now been reported that OpenAI is in talks of raising a new funding round of around $40 billion, which would lift the AI company’s valuation to as high as $340 billion.

The first Monday in February has in recent years been dubbed National Sickie Day as it’s supposedly the time when businesses see the highest number of employees calling in sick. Whilst our own database of 90,000 workers paints a slightly different picture – with 29 November topping the charts as the sickest day in the calendar – sick leave in this week of February is particularly high.

In a significant boost for London’s thriving tech sector, Barclays Eagle Labs is set to expand its footprint by partnering in seven sites across the city, designed to support tech startups and entrepreneurs on their growth journeys.

Blackfinch Ventures, part of the Blackfinch Group, has invested £300,000 in Adia Thermal, a UK startup transforming the heat pump market with its innovative retrofit technology. The investment reflects Blackfinch’s focus on supporting companies that drive meaningful progress in the energy transition while delivering strong potential returns for investors.

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, has announced that its President, Yannis Ioannidis, will deliver key insights on AI at the AI Everything Global conference. The event, scheduled for February 3-6 in the United Arab Emirates, brings together more than 500 Chief AI Officers from companies like Amazon, Meta, and more to address the rapid acceleration of AI adoption worldwide.

Melt&Marble announces a strategic partnership with Valio, an innovator and biggest food and dairy company in Finland.