As we all prepare for the reality of returning to the office, businesses are asking for more in a workspace - from allowing 'pandemic pets' in the building, to flexible contracts, and creating an environment which keeps employees' physical and mental wellbeing front of mind.

You are a startup, you've got investment, and you are ready to take on the world... but have you got solid ‘brand’ foundations in place to succeed when so many startups don’t?

After the wettest May since records began, many of us could do with a sunny holiday. There’s reason to be hopeful, with the UK government permitting international travel since 17th May and the EU agreeing to open its doors to vaccinated travellers.

Naturally, large and small businesses have innumerate differences in their motivations and capacity to operate. For instance, SMEs commonly benefit from the flexibility imparted by smaller and more focussed teams, with ownership often aligning with management. Conversely, they may have less financial freedom to invest in diversifying or building the kind of economies of scale enjoyed by more established enterprises.

New regulations for more sustainability in the European Union: on 10 February 2021, the EU adopted a tightened version of the Circular Economy Action Plan. Among other things, this plan deals particularly with the top of the sustainability chain, more specifically with specifications for a more sustainable product design. Bennet Barth, Program Director RESPOND at the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt, explains what startup founders should look out for if they want to make their products more sustainable.

Virtual events have provided a lifeline for thousands of companies during the pandemic, allowing them to stay connected to their audiences and keep vital sales and marketing efforts going. But at the same time, most organisations have struggled to deliver a positive, consistent audience experience due to connectivity issues, problems with event formats, or difficulties encouraging participation, averting desk-based distractions and preventing Zoom fatigue.

As we now know, this year’s CRL cohort is slightly different with a larger number of startups initially involved, and then after a six-week period, a hackathon and a pitch day, six will be chosen to continue on the accelerator programme. I got the chance to catch up with all 18 startups, to find out a little bit about the founders, the business, their big ideas and some of the challenges they have faced with their products and proof of concepts so far.

Employees are at greater risk than ever of suffering burnout and employers should consider putting in place preventative and curative measures. For startups in particular it is important to look at tackling burnout in a sustainable way, eradicating the factors and issues before they take hold. Debra Clark, Head of Specialist at Towergate Health & Protection explains.

Fully embedding a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy within a business is more important now than ever, and this applies to startups just as much as to any blue chip. One may be forgiven for thinking that startups have more urgent priorities: securing investment, gaining customers, hiring talent or simply turning a profit, for instance.

Spain’s Impress, the new generation of orthodontic chains in Europe, has raised a $50m Series A round. This marks the biggest Series A round in Southern Europe.

Business festival sTARTUp Day has announced the programme of this year's hybrid event. The festival brings to the stage over a hundred speakers in the course of two festival days and one side event day. On 25th-27th August, the Estonian National Museum in Tartu will become a meeting place for all the startup-minded people, with performers sharing their experiences on four stages, dozens of practical seminars, sTARTUp Pitching Powered by EstBAN, and many side events.

What makes a great website? Who knows for sure, but there are a lot of little things we know MUST go into the pot, and just as many that need to come out. A lot of webmasters out there think they know the answer, and yet, they aren’t following their own advice.

It's been a challenging year for all businesses and the startup community has been particularly impacted by ‘unprecedented times’. Kindred opened in 2018 and we had just celebrated our first birthday when the pandemic struck. As an owner of a space centered around community and connectivity, and one that constitutes as a hospitality business, I’ve ridden both personal and professional waves of uncertainty that we’ve experienced throughout the pandemic.

We are getting new business almost every day. With the rise of social media, luckily for us, we get to see them online each day more and more. During the lockdown last year, a lot of businesses failed, meanwhile a lot of businesses got a huge increase.

But Anna, how do I build a business pitch? I get asked a lot. Unfortunately, there is no magic formula for building a good pitch. I learned it by trial and (a lot) of error. I’ll give you an example.

Thrive Therapeutic Software has closed its latest round of funding in a record ten days, raising a total of £2.5m in funding and signifying one of the fastest investments of its kind for a UK company in the digital health sector.

Next-gen banking and impact app, Novus has teamed up with Visa to launch a unique mobile banking application that rewards conscious consumers for sustainable purchasing choices in a bid to generate positive impact from everyday payments.

Sky Media, the advertising sales arm of Sky, has announced the return of SME100, a £2m support scheme for small businesses, giving them free access to the power of TV advertising through AdSmart as they recover from the pandemic.

GEICO, the second-largest auto insurer in the US, is partnering with Tractable to accelerate its auto claim and repair process. Tractable’s proprietary computer vision technology, trained on millions of historical claims, assesses vehicle damage like a human appraiser. Inserting AI into the process, GEICO will be able to accurately review estimates within seconds while also reducing administrative overhead.