“Cautious optimism is hugely important,” the CIO of a large coffee shop chain told us at the end of 2020. The sentiment of caution is familiar: the lockdown life we have all come to know is characterised by endless cancelled plans, delayed returns to the office and an underlying sense of uncertainty. Any optimism that we entertain must be held up with the slightest suspicion that our well-laid plans may indeed fall apart.

As a business owner - Identifying barriers and overcoming them is key to success. Jessica Williamson, successful entrepreneur and business coach has identified the three main challenges that create barriers in businesses.

NeuReality, an Israeli AI startup developing high performance AI compute platforms for cloud data centres and edge nodes, has unveiled NR1-P, a novel AI-centric inference platform. NeuReality has already started demonstrating its AI-centric platform to customers and partners.

Regardless of size, recruitment is often one of the most difficult areas for businesses to handle. Finding that vital talent via recruitment agencies requires an upfront investment that many businesses simply don’t have. The alternative, the DIY approach, is deeply time-consuming, taking anything from 12-40 hours from application to hire and it’s very easy to get wrong if you lack the experience.

On February 5, 2021, a hacker initiated a cyberattack on a small water plant in Florida. If successful, the attack would have caused multiple health complications for the 15,000 residents that the plant provides water for. This is just an example of the disastrous consequences of cyberattacks on smaller companies. But how to avoid them? 

A series of backers, including former c-suite executives from Barclays, American Express, Expedia and Hertz have invested in family travel tech startup tripAbrood, to further develop its revolutionary AI-powered family booking experience. tripAbrood has raised £645,000 seed funds in its second round of funding, bringing total funding to just shy of the £1m mark. It comes seven months after its September 2020 beta-launch.

Businesses should consider classing long-COVID as a disability, an employment expert has warned. Up to one million people are expected to require treatment for the condition after June, according to recent reports.

One of the few silver linings to come from the pandemic has been the rapid adoption of innovation in healthcare. The race to develop vaccines in less than one year is a prime example - taking anywhere between 10 and 15 years in normal circumstances. Other technologies such as telemedicine for virtual appointments, and Virtual Reality (VR) or Augmented Reality (AR) that provides lifelike remote training for medical staff, have broken through with great pace.

Reactive Reality is a leading Austria and California-based augmented reality (AR) company enabling brands to reduce costly and environmentally damaging returns, by improving their customers online shopping experiences through the generation of high-quality digital models of people and products.

There are a lot of things that we take for granted. Something as simple as reading the label on the ingredients for dinner is quick and easy; but not for everyone. For all the wonderful things making our lives easier, there is still a lack of tech out there which effectively assists blind people in everyday tasks, such as reading text. Billy Wood, Founder of Owlett, has set out to change this.

According to the stillbirth, premature birth and miscarriage charity, Tommy’s, one in every 250 pregnancies end in a stillbirth. That’s around 3,400 babies dying every year, or nine every day, on average. But research has shown that some still births can be prevented.

Sprout.ai, the insurtech that enables insurance claims to be settled within just 24 hours, has announced that it has raised £8m/$11m in Series A funding. The round was led by one of Europe’s largest and most active early-stage investors, Octopus Ventures, and was joined by existing investors, Amadeus Capital Partners, Playfair Capital and Techstars. 

A little over a one year ago, CES just made it under the wire. One of the last of the major trade shows to 'go live' prior to the onset of the Coronavirus Pandemic, the mammoth showcase for emergent technology attracted its normal lineup of 1,200 startups, 4,400 total exhibitors and 170,000 attendees while delivering more than a hundred panels, seminars and presentations. 

SafetyCulture, the global operations platform which empowers working teams to drive improvements in the workplace, has announced a A$2.2bn valuation (approx. £1.2bn), smashing past its previous unicorn status from April 2020.

Customers are set to increase their spending once vaccines have been rolled out, according to research by SAS. When asked if they would increase their spending, nearly a fifth (17%) said they would, compared to just a tenth (10%) who said they would reduce spending once vaccines were available.

Thanks to the new advancement, hoteliers will be able to manage multiple properties all in one place. Built by Bidroom’s in-house team of technical experts, the new web application offers a simpler solution for managing bookings and room rates, and an intuitive content management platform designed to easily update hotel information, images and offers.

Diginex Solutions, the disruptive impact technology company helping to solve the world’s most pressing challenges, has launched DiginexESG to help companies of all sizes and reporting experience make their ESG reporting faster, easier and more affordable. The platform also enables large organisations to collect ESG data in their B2B client network, allowing them to make more educated decisions around risk, lending, and value. 

Koa Health, a digital mental healthcare provider offering personalised employee solutions, has launched a new report titled Wellbeing at Work, exposing the impact of COVID-19 on mental health in businesses across the UK and organisations’ response to the crisis.

Demonstrating the importance of small business to the UK’s COVID-19 recovery, a new report from Xero, shows 410,000 small business jobs need to be created by the end of the year to return to the pre-pandemic jobs trajectory. 

Mobile app adoption has skyrocketed during the pandemic. Consumers downloaded a staggering 130 billion apps in 2020, and consumer spending in app stores rose by 25 percent. Yet, app abandonment has also soared to 25 percent.