A post-COVID-19 Great Digital Catch Up - to support 4.5 million people to cross the digital divide - is presented as the solution to fix the UK’s digital divide in a new report by digital inclusion charity, Good Things Foundation. 

The Government’s furlough scheme has saved an estimated two million jobs and helped protect tens of thousands of startups and SMEs from closure. However as the clock ticks down to the end of October, the point at which the scheme will end, many businesses are now understandably concerned about what will come next once this provision is taken away.

Alternative SME credit specialist, Caple has helped Cloudbooking, a cloud-based room, desk and visitor booking software firm, to access multimillion-pound unsecured funding, contributing to an estimated 50% growth for Cloudbooking.

Aiways has started taking online orders for its U5 all-electric SUV. German customers can now order a U5 from the Aiways website, and become among the first in Europe to own an all-electric 410km range SUV from Aiways.

Minecraft has signed up to use a spatial simulation engine that is so powerful it is also being used in the fight against COVID-19. Created by supercomputing startup, Hadean, Aether Engine is being made publicly available for game studios of all sizes, from independent developers to AAA game studios, with Minecraft developer Mojang Studios as its first global partner.

Here Ramya Sriram, Digital Content Manager at Kolabtree, the freelance platform for scientists, gives five steps to ensure that you protect your Intellectual Property (IP) while working with a freelancer or remote worker.

Business bank, Allica Bank is launching a £100m funding round to help it meet the current high levels of demand for finance it is experiencing from British businesses, and continue broadening services and product lines.

Boris Johnson and his government have been pushing for employees to return to their offices in a bid to get the economy back up and running; but figures from the Office for National Statistics show that in the last week of August, only 50% of workers are back in the office.

Startups Magazine recently spoke to Tsewang Wangkang and Frederick Szydlowski, Co-founders of Embargo, a loyalty platform that allows restaurants, bars, and coffee shops to recognise and reward their customers through the use of pioneering technology.

Tailoring your marketing efforts to a global audience can be a perfect chance to expand your business and reach prospective clients that may not otherwise learn about your products or services. Targeting a global audience, however, requires having an in-depth understanding of regional laws, cultures, and purchasing behaviours. Here are four clever ways to market your business abroad.

A platform for workplace safety and quality, SafetyCulture, has acquired EdApp, a mobile training solution. EdApp currently delivers approximately 50,000 lessons per day across over 90 countries. The acquisition will enable millions of workers across diverse industries to access world-class micro-learning resources, free of charge.

Inspekto has released a whitepaper on the future of quality assurance in the industrial automation market. The paper addresses the needs of automation vendors and distributors who wish to add the first off-the-shelf product for industrial vision inspection to their portfolio.

A community-led co-working space dedicated to creating real social impact, Impact Brixton has announced the launch of Impact Day - a free working space and training programme for local individuals or organisations working towards social change in Lambeth.

Phos, the fintech behind the software-only Point of Sale (SoftPoS), and Stanchion Payment Solutions, a global specialist in payments systems and integration, have announced a partnership to enable payment processors and banks to accelerate the time to market of innovative contactless payments acceptance solutions for European merchants.

Startup founders and investors, especially in Silicon Valley, often talk about scratching your own itch as a way to reach the highly sought-after product-market fit, which will then accelerate your company to greatness. It’s likely that your problem isn’t unique, the theory goes, so by solving it you could stumble upon an idea for a product that could help thousands or even millions of people.

Xero has announced improvements to Xero Tax as it continues to transform the compliance landscape in the UK. Xero Tax is a cloud-based tax and accounts production solution. Designed by accountants for accountants, it provides increased visibility and efficiency when filing for clients.

I always thought that nothing would take priority over my career. Even during pregnancy, I was certain that I’d be itching to get back to work. Back to my routine, back to what I’m good at and have worked so hard to progress and refine over many years.

A new study, commissioned by business bank, Allica Bank, shows that the practice of regular training correlates strongly with high performance in SMEs and will be vital to businesses’ prospects of a swift recovery post-COVID. The study analysed data from over 1,000 companies and ranked their success on a scale that evaluated factors including productivity, growth, consistency and outlook.

In the current turbulent economic climate, many startups will be faced with financial challenges. In many sectors and industries, employers have not seen a return to pre-lockdown customer demand. That being the case, the starting point is to think about what your structure will look like for this new normal?

W2 is Wincanton’s digital innovation programme for developing products and services across all sectors of the Group to drive sustainable value in the supply chain. Under the W2 umbrella, W2 Labs aims to reach out to both startups and existing partners to bring fresh thinking to the supply chain, help us respond intelligently to business change and develop agile, flexible and potentially transformative solutions that improve Wincanton's customer offering.