European Health-Tech Innovation Week, sponsored by GIANT Health, is taking place from 17-21 May 2021 and is five one day hybrid conferences and exhibitions across Europe’s leading healthcare innovation regions; successfully driving improved healthcare outcomes and business collaboration by showcasing and championing Europe’s best healthtech innovations.

Small firms are being urged not to miss the deadline for this year’s Small Awards, a nationwide search for the smallest and greatest firms in the UK, across all sectors. Launched in 2017 by Small Business Britain, the annual awards have eleven unique categories across everything from longstanding family businesses and innovation-led startups, to social enterprise champions.

Private capital raising platform, HUBX, today announced the completion of a £4.2m funding round with the closure of the second tranche of financing. European B2B technology venture fund Basinghall Partners, together with Barclays, ELITE and individual investors, participated in the fintech startup’s latest funding round.

Winners of the 3rd Global Finale of the Global Startup Awards, the world’s largest independent startup ecosystem competition, have been just announced on 27th January 2021. Global Startup Awards was founded in 2012 in Copenhagen, Denmark. 

People across the country are being encouraged to show some love for small businesses as they face another challenging month in lockdown. With a government review of current restrictions not due until 22nd February, Small Business Britain issued the call ahead of this weekend’s Valentine’s Day.

With the unprecedented changes the COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted on the world, the fintech industry has had to deal with navigating the challenging climate as well as providing many opportunities for businesses and consumers to review their financial options.

And the Whatsapp ordeal is a cautionary tale for those who fail to recognise it. Since pretty much the beginning of human commerce, entrepreneurs have based their strategy around competing on two verticals, price and quality. Generally speaking, if your price is low, you’d expect the quality to also be low and vice versa.

73% of tech talent would consider working for a startup in 2021, with male tech talent more likely to work for a startup (63%) than female (49%). That’s according to a recent survey by Talent Works, which asked UK employees in a variety of tech roles what they look for in a job and where they look for new opportunities.

NeuReality, an Israeli startup developing high performance AI compute for cloud data centres and edge nodes, emerges from stealth today with $8m seed from Cardumen Capital, OurCrowd and Varana Capital to fuel the growth of real life AI applications running at scale. NeuReality will introduce its first AI platform early this year.

Uptime, the free app that presents expertly curated five-minute Knowledge Hacks of the world’s best books, courses, and documentaries, has raised a $16m Seed round to bring its platform to more users globally. 

AberInnovation has announced the six winners from the first phase of BioAccelerate 2020, their flagship business accelerator programme for biotechnology, agri-tech and food and drink innovations.

As one of the UK’s leading third-party logistics providers, Wincanton plays a huge role in construction projects all across the UK. Now, with the launch of Sprint 3 of W2 Labs - an innovation lab designed to discover emerging innovative ideas and tackle some of the logistics industry’s toughest challenges, they are aiming to focus on the construction sector specifically.

For anyone looking to make the leap into self-employment, the moment might just have arrived. Insurance broker PolicyBee has uncovered that online searches for freelancers increased over the last year, particularly for individuals with digital marketing skills.

Jolt, a leading online business school backed by Octopus Ventures and Balderton Capital, today announces that it has created over 400 work placements at some of the UK’s most exciting tech businesses through its bespoke version of the Government’s Kickstart Scheme.

Koa Health has announced it closed an oversubscribed €30m ($36m) Series A funding round. The round had a first close in October 2020, led by Wellington Partners Life Sciences and Ancora Finance Group, and has now been fully closed with key participations from MTIP and Akilia Partners, and further contributions from Creas Impacto, Sabadell Asabys, and Mundi Ventures.  

London-based 3D printing startup and innovation house, Satori has announced their latest collaboration, a collection of 3D printed necklaces, designed by 3D printing fashion designer, Ganit Goldstein and printed by Satori’s ST1600 3D printer.

Cloud Digital, experts in cloud strategy and digital transformation, is forging ahead with its new project, Earth Vision, after being awarded £99,453.33 funding from AeroSpace Cornwall to pivot from advanced cyber security into this flourishing sector.

WeMaintain, recognised for radically transforming the lift market, has acquired French PropTech startup Shokly, whose tech solution has revolutionised fire alarm maintenance and management, to increase its presence in the smart buildings sector.

Gelato, the Norway-born print-on-demand solution which allows SMEs, creators, and a new generation of e-commerce entrepreneurs to localise the production and delivery of customised products to customers based in any location in the world. 

One of the UK’s young tech entrepreneurs is speaking out to warn organisations operating across multiple sectors that the post-COVID business world may look quite different than it did before.