Small business owners are used to tackling the unexpected, but coronavirus has presented startups across the UK with a challenge on a scale they could never have planned for.

Sage has released the first edition of the SMB Tracker, highlighting the latest weekly sentiment from businesses across the UK. This week the Tracker finds that a greater proportion of the UK’s small and medium sized businesses may have either applied or intend to apply for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (JRS).

Startups across sectors are signing up to offer learning and development opportunities to furloughed workers through professional development platform, Learnerbly, as they attempt to support employees throughout the coronavirus crisis.

National Health Service (NHS) workers are being offered free initial financial advice from Fintuity via their state-of-the-art online platform, the United Kingdom’s only FCA regulated-online Independent Financial Adviser (IFA).

With the UK charity sector estimated to be facing a £4 billion loss in the next 12 weeks and 50% of all businesses putting most of their staff on furlough as a result of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, Freestyle, a Midlands-based digital product studio - has launched a unique service helping charities connect and find support from local businesses and its furloughed workers, Charity Matcher. 

More than six weeks after the Government ordered people to work from home many businesses have gone under while others remain fighting for survival. Yet thousands are also finding a way to get through - often by diversifying the way they work and seeking out new opportunities. In this special report by Harper James Solicitors - who support more than 1,000 firms from start up to scale up five firms share the story of their life in lockdown. 

Fractory, the award-winning Manchester cloud manufacturing startup, has announced the launch of SafeKey, an antimicrobial multitool that kills harmful bacteria, such as Covid-19, in as little as two hours. 

LuggageHero, a leading luggage-storage network, is bucking the trend by showing that investing in travel startups is not over during these uncertain times surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.  

London based FinTech Flagstone, developer of the UK’s largest cash deposit marketplace, has raised $15m (£12m) in venture capital in a round led by OMERS Ventures and supported by existing investors including Kindred Capital and Moneysupermarket Group plc.

North Wales fintech startup, monva has announced it has exceeded its initial crowdfunding target of £250,000, as it enters a period of overfunding across the next two weeks.

The Institute of Economic Development (IED) has today launched the Commission for Economic Renewal, which will bring together some of the UK’s foremost economic development practitioners and academics to formulate the policies and interventions it believes will be needed to rebuild economies in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) should check the security and data protection of the technology they are using during COVID-19 lockdown, urges the MCA. Although there has been a rapid adoption of technology by firms, some have not been able to assess security quickly enough, risking exposure of confidential data and client information. The MCA has created a free checklist for SMEs to ensure that they ask the right questions about technology and how staff could use it before it is purchased.

Bot-Hive, a digital marketplace for robotics and AI solutions has successfully completed a six-figure equity funding round. Bot-Hive is a digital marketplace which connects SMEs with the right automation technology for their business and shows them the best way to introduce robots to their workflow processes.

Hub71, Abu Dhabi’s growing tech ecosystem, has expanded to 51 startups with the announcement of 15 new joiners to the Hub71 Incentive Program. The Hub71 Selection Committee prioritized global startups in the field of HealthTech and EdTech, which provide essential technologies to support the private and public sector as they adapt to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Founded in early 2019, Funded.club provides recruiting services for startups and scale-ups. Rather than charging based on a percentage of annual salary, Funded.club receives only low success fees that come in 70-80% less than a regular recruiting agency, irrespective of the salary offered or how long it takes to fill a position.

Provider of technology solutions for merchants, banks and capital markets firms, FIS has announced that FIS Ventures, the newly created corporate venture investment division of FIS, has launched an effort to invest a target of $150m in promising fintech startups over the next three years.

Robotical, the edtech startup behind Marty the Robot, has today announced that it is working with South African NGO, Got Game, on Nokia’s Helping hands project to deliver education to previously disadvantaged youths in South Africa.

Temenos, the banking software company, has announced the launch of Explainable AI (XAI) models to enable banks and credit unions to rapidly offer loans to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that have seen their cash flow disrupted by the Covid-19 outbreak. These patented XAI models allow banks to accelerate digital onboarding, conduct eligibility checks and process loan applications for SMEs and retail customers.

More than 28-days on from the Prime Minister’s lockdown measures closed the door on many businesses, Toby Harper said help, for many, was still 'painfully slow.' He said the Chancellor’s new £1.25bn coronavirus package to protect firms driving innovation in UK , which includes a £500m investment fund, asks more questions than it answers. 

Around nine million accidents happen in Germany every year – sometimes with lasting health consequences for those affected. Personal accident insurance helps to cushion the financial burden. Getsafe has decided to offer its customers a digital accident insurance product. This marks an important step for the company towards life insurance and shows that even personal, complex insurance products work on the smartphone.