The impact of the global pandemic on UK M&A has been somewhat mixed. Following an extremely volatile period last year, which saw many businesses struggle to navigate the new norm and many others successfully ride out the storm, we have seen a strong rebound so far in 2021.

Quizlet was founded in 2005 by Andrew Sutherland, while a sophomore studying French at Albany High School in California. Since then, the company has grown into an interactive learning platform and app, used by over 60 million people around the world. We spoke to Rahim Hirji, UK Country Manager at leading online learning platform and app, Quizlet.

HumanForest, a sustainable e-bike sharing app, has announced a marketing partnership with digital wealth manager, Nutmeg.

During the pandemic, virtual events have given everyone a chance to socialise with loved ones during difficult times. It has also helped work events continue in a new dynamic, with many employees favouring the virtual experience over in-person events. But now, in a post Freedom Day world, there is a strong desire to return to physical events.

The commute as we knew it may be gone for good, new research conducted by e-bike subscription service DASH Rides reveals. DASH and Sapio Research surveyed over 2,000 city-dwelling, full-time workers, who used to work primarily in the office and now work primarily at home, and discovered that three quarters of those returning to the office will be actively avoiding public transport or seeking new ways to travel. 

Perci Health, the world’s first online platform that gives people access to support from multidisciplinary cancer teams, has launched today with £1.5m of seed funding. The backers are an assortment of influential oncologists and cancer surgeons from major cancer centres across the UK.

Foodsteps, a food technology startup that allows businesses to easily calculate, reduce, and label the environmental impact of their food, has formally launched in the UK today. The company is the first UK-based tech firm to provide carbon tracking and impact labelling to restaurants and caterers as well as food businesses.

Not a people person? Prefer animals to folks? Does the prospect of networking leave you cold? You’re not alone. A study by Harvard academics found that networking made some people feel dirty with an aching desire to brush their teeth!

There are several tactics and approaches which can help leverage a smooth scaleup process even in unpredictable times. Taking a business from startup to a rapid-growth-scaleup has always been challenging. There is a reason that not every startup can become a ‘unicorn’.

In response to the pandemic, the traditional schooling method was transformed. As children transitioned to home learning, technology had to step up its game to support parents and teachers in continuing their children’s education at a regular pace. 

With this year taking a slightly different format to previous programmes, the CRL 2021 cohort sponsored by Mouser Electronics was spilt into two phases. Phase one saw 20 startups take part for six weeks, work in depth with the team to learn where they are at, what they need help with, and where they want to take things. From here the startups got the chance to pitch to the CRL community, partners and investors, to compete for the final six positions which will find themselves in phase two developing their products and businesses further.

There are many upgrades you can make to your workplace that make your startup a great place to work. However, there aren’t many workplace upgrades like the following tech items that improve the quality of your service while enhancing productivity and company profitability.

At this year’s Online Growth Summit hosted by Blooming Founders, Inga Driksne, operations advisor to early-stage founders, with a wealth of experience in supporting founders during the hiring process, shared her thoughts on recruitment best practice for startups and small businesses who are looking to embark on their first hires. Startups Magazine reports.

Vira Health, a digital health company focused on improving long term health for women, has raised £1.5m in seed funding from LocalGlobe, MMC Ventures, and angel investors including Megumi Ikeda, Managing Director, Hearst Ventures, Andrea Zitna of Elvie, former Spotify executive Sofia Bendz, founder of GoCardless Matt Robinson, and Simon Lambert, former CTO, MOO.com, and Treatwell.

Scaling your business, whilst maintaining efficiency, is possibly one of the hardest things to do in performance advertising. The reason for that is down to the way the platforms are set up. There are two traditional scaling methods - horizontal scaling and vertical scaling.

In 2020, UK venture capital firms invested £12bn into businesses across the nation. By far the largest total value of investment across the whole of Europe, with Germany ranking second, but some way behind at £5.6bn.

Startups are looking to make their mark in the busy online world as everyone competes to be more visible to their audiences. Traditional PR is an essential part of the strategy to manage online reputation, brand awareness and promotion of a business but have you thought about combining this with SEO to level up your presence? Businesses often separate PR and SEO, but why? Blending PR and SEO together achieves better results as PR promotes the brand and SEO concentrates on ranking and traffic.

NEXUS have a £3,000,000 fund to invest in 2021 and are open to consider all innovative Creative, Tech and Digital UK startup business ideas with priority interest in the following sectors: Tech, VR, Gaming, Digital, Media, Smart Screen/TV, Music, Fashion & Textiles, Events, Film and Dance.

The billions promised by the government for catch-up tuition sounds like a lot of money, but when you work it out on an individual basis it’s barely enough to cover a few hours of one-to-one tuition per student. I believe that edtech rather than tuition provides the answer to meet the catch-up challenge, and his micro-tuition experiment proves that this approach can work.

The European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth will make her first official visit to Spain on 9th and 10th September 2021, inaugurating the Startup OLÉ technology event in Salamanca on the 9th.