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.

Smartify, the visitor engagement platform, has successfully raised £1.5 million to bring new technologies to the arts and culture sector and continue expanding its international presence.

HiBob has revealed the average British employee is working 215 hours of overtime per year.  More than two in five (42%) workers do not receive any additional compensation for overtime worked, meaning these individuals work a yearly average of £4,022 for free.  

When Fajer Mushtaq turned on the tap as a child in Delhi, one question always loomed: was the water safe? Today, that same question haunts communities worldwide as PFAS – toxic "forever chemicals" used in everything from non-stick pans to firefighting foam – contaminate water supplies at an alarming rate. Today, Swiss startup Oxyle has announced a $16 million funding round to scale its breakthrough solution to destroy, not just relocate, PFAS from wastewater. This builds on its $3 million pre-seed round in 2022, growing support for its mission.  

IoT Tribe has launched the Flywheel Programme, an initiative designed to empower early-stage startups developing agentic AI and advanced technologies for the Aerospace and Defence sectors – developed in collaboration with Siemens Digital Industries Software.

SatVu has received €244,853 in funding from the European Space Agency (ESA) to conduct a feasibility study, in collaboration with the University of Glasgow, to enhance the analysis of building energy efficiency.

Younger workers are facing confusion in their pay, leaving many ill-equipped to manage their finances and reliant on their employers for support, according to research from PayFit.

Molten Ventures has announced its participation as a co-lead investor in the $5.5 million seed funding round for Sightline, a market intelligence platform powering the transition economy.

Mollie, one of Europe’s fastest-growing financial service providers, has enabled Apple’s Tap to Pay on iPhone for its UK customers. This allows businesses of all sizes to use the Mollie app on iPhone to accept contactless payments without the need to purchase or manage additional hardware.