Spend on Small Business Saturday hit £1.1bn this year, exceeding the billion pound mark for the first time ever as shoppers showed support for their local high streets.

myGP, the UK’s largest independent GP booking and healthcare management app that connects patients with primary care, has announced its intention to provide the people in England with a simple, clear means of communicating their verified vaccination status, via their Smartphone.

PitchBook, the data provider for the private and public equity markets, has released All In: Women in the VC Ecosystem, its second annual report examining global Venture Capital (VC) investment in female-founded startups. The report, published with support from Microsoft for Startups and Beyond the Billion, shows the coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately impacted female founders and CEOs negatively, despite undeniable, long term gains in VC investment over the past decade.

It’s estimated that more than 750 million edge AI chips will be sold in 2020. Just got your head around AI? Edge AI is Artificial Intelligence-driven computing on embedded systems and the growth potential in the UK is immense. Now AeroSpace Cornwall, who is part funded by the European Regional Development Fund and Cornwall Council, has awarded Bluefruit Software - leaders in providing high-quality embedded software - £100k of funding for critical research and development into this mind-blowing technology, which is forecasted to expand by 20% over the next five years. 

Charities from the UK and across the world are flocking to a startup social media platform which is coining itself the world’s first ‘social media for good’.

Compiled as an antidote to fast-growth lists dominated by private equity and venture capital-backed businesses, Buzzacott’s inaugural Organic Growth 25 has identified the companies achieving impressive revenue growth with minimal equity investment.

Moneyhub, the market-leading Open Banking and Open Finance data, intelligence and payments platform, is the first TPP to connect to Citibank, the consumer division of financial services multinational Citigroup. In the UK, Moneyhub offers consent-driven access to financial data via 580 live and in production connections across 200 financial services providers - of which 100 are direct UK Open Banking providers, and a further 100 more broad Open Finance providers.

Scientist and entrepreneur, Dr Harry Destecroix, has unveiled Science Creates, the deep tech ecosystem that offers specialised incubator space, a £15m investment fund and a comprehensive network of strategic partners to nurture science and engineering startups and spin-outs. The hub, in partnership with the University of Bristol and located in the heart of the city, is set to become the ‘new West Coast’, transforming disruptive discoveries through impactful commercialisation.

Digital insurance company, Getsafe closed a $30m Series B funding. Swiss Re’s digital platform iptiQ led the round. Existing investors, including Earlybird, CommerzVentures, btov Partners and Capnamic Ventures, also participated. Getsafe now has received a total of $53m from investors, making it one of the best-financed European insurtechs.

The benefits of satellite data to life on earth are something that the global space community celebrated at this year’s 'World Space Week'. Female founded tech startup, Data Duopoly, have already been recognised for their innovation in the use of space data - winning the Pitch to the Primes competition at the UK Space Conference in 2019, awarded by Astronaut Tim Peake.

Accenture & Ponemon’s 2019 Cost of Cybercrime Study indicates that the right approach to cyber threats might save companies up to $5.2tn of future revenues in the next few years. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are among the most vulnerable as they only recently became more conscious of clear and present cyber threats. 

Almost half of UK businesses have seen an employee move on because their mental wellbeing wasn’t being looked after, with a quarter losing a key member of their workforce, according to new research from not-for-profit healthcare provider, Benenden Health.

During 2020 virtual collaboration accelerated exponentially, creating an instant need for virtual facilitation skills. But as more and more companies move towards online and virtual meetings, the opportunities and challenges associated with remote sessions have been thrown into sharp relief. 

Virgin StartUp and Crowdcube have partnered to help the next generation of purpose-driven founders grow their businesses and achieve real change through their Collective Impact programme.

u-blox has signed a deal with the Cambridge-based technology company, Focal Point Positioning, to integrate technology that will improve the accuracy and reliability of GNSS devices - enhancing positioning performance and security for growing applications such as smart cities, location-secure IoT and health and fitness wearables. 

Valloop, founded to empower employees and management to buy the companies they work for, has emerged from stealth ready to back small business founders wishing to exit.

Fixter, the UK’s first end-to-end online car maintenance service provider, has urged UK motorists to book their cars in now for MOT, car service and repair work to avoid potentially costly parts price rises and supply issues in the event of a No-deal Brexit. To soften the potential blow, Fixter is offering a parts cost price protection guarantee for January 2021 MOT and service bookings across its UK network, giving car owners valuable peace of mind in these uncertain times.

The three-day, 60-hour marathon TiE Entrepreneurship summit scheduled to be held from 8th to 10th December 2020 is a mega virtual platform where budding entrepreneurs will get a chance to restructure their way to overcoming the COVID-19 crisis.

TiE Global Entrepreneurship Awards are designed to honour the outstanding entrepreneurs for their stellar performance and recognising the key ecosystem stakeholders for their contribution to the startup innovation, entrepreneurship development and investment climate. This initiative is in live with TiE’s mission of Fostering Entrepreneurship.

Manchester-based tech start-up enee.io has been awarded £170k from Innovate UK’s Sustainable Innovation Fund. The six-figure grant will enable the firm to further develop and commercialise its pioneering technology providing automated and remote monitoring of industrial battery systems used to provide back-up power for critical infrastructure including hospitals, data centres and mobile phone masts.