In the space of just two months, the UK’s data watchdog, the ICO has dished out nearly £40m in personal data breach fines to some of the country’s best-known companies - British Airways, Marriott International and Ticketmaster. Whisper it quietly but the ICO’s burst of penalty decisions, coming after significant delays, goes some way to countering mutterings that the regulator lacked the will to take on large and well-resourced opponents.

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.

When starting a business, the implementation of a Customer Relationship Management or ‘CRM’ system may seem like an unnecessary task but committing to it from the outset will save time, cost and resources when compared to installation at a later date.

In 2019, Elon Musk made headlines by touting AI as a “fundamental risk to the existence of civilisation”. Ironically - for a man in his line of work - Mark Zuckerburg countered this argument, describing the warnings as 'pretty irresponsible'.

Startups Magazine and Fiverr have come together to bring Female Founders a Micro-Grant, to win £5,000 Fiverr credit. This competition has now closed for new entries.

If you have just started a business, you would probably want to know how to get more customers from the get-go. It can be from knowing the way to success or even just having the welcoming body language that can either make or break a deal. You need to be careful as a salesperson - being nervous is easily visible.

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. 

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.

Nine months on from the first outbreak of Covid-19 here in the UK and the virus remains the most-talked about news item. Whether it's radio shows discussing tiers or newspaper articles investigating possible PPE corruption, coronavirus continues to be the biggest story worldwide.

Back in January, it looked likely that employee share schemes would see reasonable growth across the country through 2020.

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.

Although the future looks quite challenging during the pandemic, having watched 18 entrepreneurs show what risks they take to improve patients' lives to enable better patient care, we become hopeful.

Zephr, the technology platform for media companies to grow their subscription revenue, has announced it has raised $8m, led by US-based BDMI and financing from SVB.

The F Factor, organised by Founders of the Future, is the UK’s premier startup competition for 18-25 year olds. It goes all across the UK to find entrepreneurial talent. To enter the competition you need an idea, a seemingly working prototype (does not need to be a fully working MVP but rather a prototype that shows how your idea works) and a two min pitch in video of your startup idea.

It seems that we’ve had so many turning points over the past few years, we’re running in circles. Landmark moments from Brexit to COVID-19 have completely shifted our personal lives, politics and the economy. Crises and moments of great change put us into reactive mode, and short-term fixes appear to be the only option. Looking for solutions which reap benefits and pay for themselves further down the line is a much bolder endeavour.