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.

Rumours circulating suggest that AllBright, the women-only members’ club, has entered administration.

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.

Flowwow, a global gifting marketplace for local shops in 40+ countries, has shared new insights from its 2024 market research, revealing a remarkable surge in cross-border gift orders across Europe. The European personalised gifting market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.01% from 2023 to 2029, driven by disposable income increases and product innovations.

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.  

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.

PAY360 2025, the largest event dedicated to the global payments ecosystem, will be held on 25-26 March 2025 at ExCeL London. Hosted by The Payments Association, this premier event brings together over 6000 innovators, thought leaders, and stakeholders to discuss the trends, technologies, and challenges defining the future of payments.

Kore.ai, a company in enterprise AI, has announced AI for Process, a no-code platform that fundamentally transforms how enterprises automate and optimise knowledge-intensive operations.

Vessev, has announced that the first Vessev VS-9 hydrofoiling ferry, named Kermadec, has entered commercial service with Fullers360, one of New Zealand’s largest ferry transport and tourism operators.

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.

UK businesses anticipate another tough year in 2025, according to new research from Pleo, one of Europe’s business spend management platforms.

Exein, the embedded IoT cybersecurity startup, and MediaTek, a global company in semiconductor solutions, have announced a partnership that transforms device security on a massive scale. Exein’s advanced cybersecurity technology will be natively integrated into MediaTek’s Genio platform, starting with the 24.1 release of MediaTek IoT Yocto. This collaboration will bring powerful security features to billions of connected devices worldwide.

An EU-funded consortium of 10 organisations – including Telefónica and Huawei – has launched to reduce the carbon footprint of telecommunications systems. EXIGENCE, which lists partners in telecommunications, academic research and digital transformation across seven EU Nations, is set to mitigate the environmental impacts of next-generation (6G) mobile systems.

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.

Sage has announced that Sage Copilot, the generative AI-powered assistant will be generally available to UK SMBs starting in March.

This National Productivity Week, a CIPD poll has found that almost two thirds of people (63%) would trust AI to inform – but not make – important decisions at work. According to the poll of over 2,000 people, over a third (35%) wouldn’t trust AI to make important decisions at work, preferring to use human intelligence. Just 1% of respondents would trust AI to make important work decisions.

Dan Thomson, Founder of AI startup Sensay, has urged the industry to drop the term 'AI agent' and instead use the term 'AI employee' as the firm seeks to reframe the tense discussion around AI-human collaboration.  

The UK healthcare sector is at risk of falling behind its European counterparts in adopting AI, according to a major new pan-European study.

In 2024, the UK’s fintech startup ecosystem emerged as the second most funded globally, trailing only the US. Despite its historical prominence, 2024 marked a five-year low in funding, attributed to factors such as evolving regulatory complexities, heightened investor caution due to fraud and cybersecurity concerns, and macroeconomic challenges like inflation and rising interest rates.