As we celebrate Earth Day, I thought there is no better chance than to share one of my favourite startups in the sustainability/ tech4good industry, and that is Thrift who aims to encourage people to buy and sell second hand items more, to result in less items wasted and ending up in landfill.

Flow Your Money (Flow), the money management app for freelancers and consumers has raised a €3.5m seed investment round led by Eleven Ventures. The round was joined by RockSalt, the venture arm of SaltPay, as well as Silverflow co-founder Robert Kraal (former COO Adyen), Hristo Borisov (founder and CEO of Payhawk), Marnix van der Ploeg (Booking.com) and Travel Health Group’s owner Arnoud Aalbersberg. The investment will enable Flow to scale up its platform, which makes it possible to automatically distribute incoming and outgoing money flows, taking the step towards 'self-driving money': smart, fully autonomous money management. Flow now also can expedite European expansion plans as it sets out to become the largest player in this fast-growth market. 

Creator Fund, the early-stage VC fund investing in deeptech emerging from universities, has announced a $20m fund.

AWS has announced it has committed more than $30m to early stage startups led by black, latino, LGBTQIA+, and women founders as part of its AWS Impact Accelerator.

Every day, millions of contracts are drafted, however, due to poor and manual contract management processes, companies a reportedly losing as much as £10m in inefficiencies. Recognising this as a widespread problem, Niels Martin Brøchner, Jarek Owczarek and Viktor Heide founded and developed Contractbook, an automated contract management platform that is now used by over 150,000 businesses, including NHS Trust, TED, The Student Hotel, Mutebox and Eon.

For most, if not all freelancers, the invitation to work for free will land on our desks, often early on in our freelance careers.

Branding and marketing experts Solopress have analysed the techniques employed by some of the biggest names in business.

HumanForest and 22 Bishopsgate are partnering to encourage occupiers of 22 Bishopsgate to move around the city in a healthy and sustainable way. 

In light of Earth Day 2022, new research suggests that although UK climate technology is playing a crucial role in tackling global climate change, challenges in accessing funding and a lack of support from the government is impeding the development of the industry.

Despite feeling overwhelmed about how to take climate action, research from Ecologi, a climate action platform has shown that eight in ten business owners want to be greener, just don’t know where to start. 

You’re reading this because you care. Because you want to make a difference, but the harsh reality is that you care more about your day job, the bottom-line, fund-raise, your next hire. Because that pays the bills and keeps the roof over everyone’s head. Once that’s all done, then you can worry about being sustainable.

Pitch, the collaborative presentation platform for modern teams, has introduced recordings, a feature that gives every team the power of collaborative video storytelling right within Pitch.

Futr, the live chat and customer service chatbots leader, has secured new funding from Blackfinch Ventures, a technology venture capital firm, and existing investors to continue its mission of using artificial intelligence to disrupt the delivery of customer service.

Research from XpertHR reveals that 67% of organisations say that their HR department does not currently gather enough meaningful data to measure HR performance within their business

SafetyWing, the Norwegian startup building a global social safety net, has announced the closing of a $35m series B funding round led by leading European growth investor Kinnevik with full participation from existing investors Creandum and byFounders. The insurance investor Mundi Ventures also joined this round. The funding follows an $8m series A funding round last year, led by Creandum.

EMJ has been honoured with a Queen’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade. 

A dog walking app designed to give dog walking businesses a head start has launched a crowdfunding campaign to invest in blockchain technology and support its impressive growth and development strategy.

Vaayu, the climate tech start-up that helps retailers reduce their carbon footprint in real-time, has closed an $11.5m seed funding round led by Atomico, with follow on from CapitalT and participation from Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s firm Seven Seven Six, along with a select group of angel investors including Cristina Stenbeck, Chairperson of the Zalando Supervisory Board and non-Executive Director of Spotify and Bryant Chou, co-founder and CTO of Webflow. As part of this round of investment, Atomico Partner Terese Hougaard will join Vaayu’s board, making it 75% female. 

PropTech startup Bright Spaces launched its first subsidiary abroad, in the UK. The startup, which creates advanced, end-to-end digital leasing platforms for commercial and residential real estate, already has two clients from the UK.

If you use a managed service provider (MSP) for your small business’s IT needs, you may have noticed that your monthly spend with them has increased. This is because Microsoft has raised the price of the monthly subscription licence for the Office 365 suite.