The AI talent war is here. The majority of executives (68%) report that the skills gap within their organisations is moderate to severe. The current AI tech job landscape is uneven and competitive, prompting firms to discover new tech hubs for sourcing AI expertise.

Each month, Zubr Capital shifts its focus from daily market activities to gain a macro view of Europe’s tech investment ecosystem. It’s not just about who raised new funding or exited, but about the underlying patterns that could indicate future trends. We found volumes remained steady while the market tone turned deliberate. Familiar themes remained strong, with a few gaining momentum and several new aspects coming into sharper focus.

Running my own business propelled me through the biggest trauma of my life. I was in a hospital bed the day after surgery, a bandage on one side of my face, having had my entire left eye removed suddenly due to rare eye cancer. My husband caught me on LinkedIn. “You can’t stop!” he teased. It’s true, I didn’t pause to take a breath. I continued as if nothing had happened. I plunged myself further into growing my business. And I realise now that this masked the mental struggle that was bubbling within.

Trescon, in partnership with ESG Mena, announced the launch of the CARE ESG Awards, a landmark platform recognising the innovators, organisations, and change makers redefining sustainability standards across the Middle East and North Africa. The CARE ESG Awards will take place at the inaugural Climate Action, Renewable Energy & Sustainability Forum (CARE MENA), co-located with the Digitisation, AI & Emerging Tech Summit (DATE). Together, the two events will bring together over 4,000 government, industry, technology, and sustainability leaders.

In today’s digital landscape, British consumers are increasingly stepping back from constant connectivity, driven by content oversaturation, “attention fatigue” and a desire for more mindful experiences. World Mental Health Day offers a timely opportunity for individuals and brands to reflect the ways technology shapes our emotional health – and how more intentional visual storytelling can help spark meaningful conversations around it.  

We’ve all heard of the motherload, that invisible rucksack full of mental lists, guilt, and responsibility that so many women carry. Eve Rodsky’s book Fair Play helped put a name to it. But even with all that talk of balance, I still find myself asking: what happens when you add neurodiversity to the mix?

Burnout has become a silent epidemic in modern workplaces. Leaders across every sector are seeing rising absenteeism, falling engagement, and talented employees walking out the door, often without any warning signs.

Great businesses don’t begin with balance sheets, boardrooms, or venture capital. They start with an idea – often a small, simple spark of inspiration that grows into something significant through determination, discipline and persistence. The journey from idea to product is rarely glamorous or straightforward. It’s messy, relentless and sometimes unforgiving. Yet when tackled with clarity and courage, it becomes one of the most rewarding adventures an entrepreneur can undertake.

As a small business owner and a business that also provides services direct to businesses (some of whom also happen to be small and startups), one of the things that I found the most stressful and that contributed to poor mental health when I first started out, was the amount of bad advice that exists and that is promulgated aggressively from other small businesses trying to make a quick buck from small businesses and startups. 

In the volatile world of entrepreneurship, mental resilience has quietly become a key performance indicator. Founders, investors, and teams have begun to realise that mental resilience is not just a wellness trend – it’s the infrastructure of sustainable growth.

Businesses are built on vision, courage, pace, and a generous dose of grit. But that momentum can quickly give way to self-neglect. The tendency to push harder for the pay off. But businesses don’t benefit when founders are burnt out.

Are “Trumpisms” a masterclass in branding or a perfect demonstration of how not to communicate in business? What can startups take away from the US President’s playbook?

There’s an old saying in engineering circles: “automation gives you speed, but agency gives you freedom.” In the twenty years I’ve spent building systems – from personalising e-commerce at Jio to designing AI-assisted cancer diagnostics at Zedsen, and most recently crafting an AI-driven ERP in Europe – I’ve seen organisations climb the ladder from digitisation to automation. But something new is stirring. We are on the cusp of a new organisational form: the agentic organisation, where multi-agent AI systems don’t just support teams – they become active members of them.

Clustermarket, the lab equipment scheduling platform, has announced it is rebranding to Calira and welcoming non-executive director and investor Edmund Wilson, co-founder and former CEO of Titian Software (now Cenevo), to capitalise on increasing enterprise demand for optimising lab operations.

This World Mental Health Day, I really want to reach out to the entrepreneurs, founders, and business builders out there. The ones chasing big visions while carrying invisible weight. The ones who know they’re capable of more but feel stuck, overwhelmed, or plagued by self-doubt. The ones who, on the outside, look successful, but inside are battling procrastination, imposter syndrome, or constant pressure to “do more.”

On 10th October it is World Mental Health Day, a day to remember how deeply mental wellness shapes our lives, our communities, and our work.

More than 170 small business founders gathered at Hyde Park Corner to take part in a founders' ‘walk and talk’ event during Mental Health Awareness Week in May earlier this year. Organised by the not-for-profit, Virgin StartUp in collaboration with mental health service Self Space, the event encouraged business owners to take a break from their busy lives and tap into start-up support and connect with their peers.

Financial wellbeing is now the top priority for employees, with new data showing stability, security, and fair rewards matter more than ever.

In our go faster, achieve more with the same or fewer resources world, pressure is both inescapable and a force that can manifest in various forms. The workplace in particular is a common place to feel the weight of mounting responsibilities and demands, with sources as wide ranging as shifting priorities, a sense of too much to do in too little time, lack of information or resources, and rapid change.

Attention.inc, the startup developing a desktop-native AI assistant that continuously learns from real workflows, has announced an uncapped $1.25 million pre-seed raise.