With more than 266,000 small businesses having reopened since the end of April, kitchen worktop businesses and Instagram marketplaces have seen an entire new generation of entrepreneurs to be able to get their products lifted off the ground. However, for many individuals and micro-businesses, the prohibitive costs associated with the rapid and accurate production and manufacture of their creations often prevents them from scaling up and making considerable profits.

Startups Magazine caught up with Flavius Plesu, Founder and CEO of OutThink, the world’s first Predictive Human Risk Intelligence platform (SaaS), aimed at revolutionising security awareness and giving security teams the power that comes with identifying high risk users – fully understanding who is not behaving securely and why. 

Capita plc (‘Capita’) today announces the launch of Retain Cloud, a software-as-a-service workforce planning and management solution, for small and medium-sized (SME) companies.

The Dutch Fintech that already checks over 90% of Dutch payments with the IBAN-Name Check, SurePay, has announced the successful implementation of its UK Confirmation of Payee solution. NatWest Group chose SurePay as a vendor and partner to implement Confirmation of Payee. The service is already checking 25% of UK online Payments.

What do startups need to know to ensure that their website is secure and safe against cyber attacks? Innovators, investors, and entrepreneurs, launching startup companies have hundreds of issues to deal with. Often setting up their website and internal communications drops in the list of priorities. And usually, at the bottom of that list, is ensuring that the company’s communications and website are secure.

UK software company TAAP is helping companies small, medium and large businesses get up and running post lockdown with the TAAP Visitor Book app.  

Remote, a self-serve platform for global employment, announced that GitLab will use Remote to employ the best talent in the world with full local legal compliance.

Having formed new habits around remote work, many of us have settled into new routines and habits, adjusting to the shift and integrating this new way of working into our lives. But, bigger organisational processes might have been missed in the scramble to equip teams with the day-to-day tools needed to maintain business continuity.

YHANGRY is a London-based startup providing private chefs for social get-togethers at home. We launched our beta website in May 2019, when Siddhi Mittal and I were still working on the trading floor at Barclays in Canary Wharf. We were 10 months into our startup journey when COVD-19 brought our business to a grinding halt.

In this day and age, building the right content marketing strategy can either make or break a business. Content marketing has the power to shape the way audiences perceive and engage with your organisation.

International Supply Chain (ISC) platform transforming the global supply chain by connecting global supply with global demand, Mercado Labs has closed a $2.5m funding round led by Ironspring Ventures and joined by new investor Supply Chain Ventures.

Many businesses in the UK are both getting paid - and paying - later, with the COVID-19 pandemic causing a surge in late payments. According to the latest independent research from Close Brothers Asset Finance, three in five UK SMEs have experienced delays in receiving payments, while a significant number of business owners have admitted to being forced into delaying paying invoices.

In light of the business loan scheme statistics out today, Stephen Kelly, Chair of Tech Nation has shared his thoughts.

New research from Santander UK reveals that a third (32%) of the UK’s SMEs who implemented changes plan to make their COVID-19 adaptations a permanent feature post-pandemic as almost half found they not only survived, but actually grew their customer base during COVID-19. The study – which polled 2,050 senior leaders in UK SMEs – suggests that the pandemic has driven long-term change to the way businesses operate.

With the acquisition of eSoftThings, an expert in the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), based in Cesson-Sevigne (Rennes metropolitan area, France), LACROIX Group has consolidated its R&D division already present in Brittany in the area and strengthened its positioning in the industrial IoT and AI, particularly in the field of connected vehicles.

Israeli medical startup, NanoVation has been awarded a €2.5m grant as part of the European Union’s prestigious Horizon 2020 EIC Accelerator program. The Haifa-based company is developing a new respiratory monitoring device, based on its proprietary nano-sensor technology.

COVID-19 (coronavirus) has significantly impacted businesses, but even more so for social entrepreneurs, BAME founders and females due to the difficulties and challenges around access to support, finance and funding as well as structural inequalities. We are on a mission to work closely with these founders to help them flourish in the face of adversity.

“I never put myself forward for awards, so this was a really nice surprise,” is what Tamsin Dewhurst, Founder at Uptree said to me when I asked how she felt about winning our Founder of the Year award in this year’s Virtual Hustle Awards.

Creator Fund, the university-focused venture capital fund, has released its “State of Student Startups” report, which gives a comprehensive national picture of what the UK’s best young minds are starting, and how to best support them. The report found that more than half of UK campus ventures have a foreign student founder.

Edinburgh-based startup, Boundary is preparing for the official launch of its smart home security system in August, and will use the funding to complete product testing and for its post-launch operations.