Coronavirus lockdowns have boosted the nation’s love for UK small businesses, with 59% of Brits saying they now support local businesses more than previously. Research, commissioned by American Express and Small Business Saturday UK, underscores the huge role small firms have played in supporting their communities through lockdown, with many pivoting to offer people new products and services such as deliveries, takeaways and virtual consultations.

Authentic Vision, an Austrian-based technology startup that provides anticounterfeiting solutions, has announced that it has closed a $5m Series B funding round with Custos Privatstiftung Austria), Dolby Family Ventures (USA), Gronova Vision (UAE), TAKKT AG (Germany) and business angels.

Deci, the deep learning startup dedicated to transforming the AI lifecycle, has announced it has raised $9.1m in a seed round led by Israel-based VC firm Emerge and global VC fund Square Peg. The company is building an AI-based platform that can automatically craft robust, scalable, and efficient deep neural network solutions ready for production at scale. Deci aims to help AI practitioners build the next generation of deep learning models.

White Castle has announced plans to expand work with Miso Robotics - creators of the first autonomous grilling and frying kitchen assistant, Flippy - to target up to ten new locations (in addition to the initial testing location) following completion of their current pilot. The announcement comes following early results at one test location.

The amount of fraud that companies face on a daily basis has rapidly increased since the beginning of the global pandemic. Country-wide lockdowns saw customers forced to move many aspects of their lives online, whether for shopping or socialising. To keep up with these changing behaviours, companies have had to enter the digital arena, many for the first time.

The debate continues whether remote working will continue when the UK is relieved from the effects of the pandemic. But one thing that is seeming almost set in stone is these regularly moving restrictions are going to remain into 2021 with mass vaccination not likely until the Spring or Summer.

Bring the spooky season to life by virtually gathering the team for fun activities during October. Even though this year’s celebrations will look a bit different, don’t let the restrictions of remote working stop the fun. Plan a virtual Halloween party and lead up to it with spooky but socially distanced activities to build suspense. Here, Employment Hero, who launched in the UK this week, has created some fun tips to help celebrate Halloween virtually this year.

A London-based business growth agency is so confident that it can create profitable social media advertising for clients, it is offering to run test social media video campaigns on behalf of interested companies free of charge.

Cambridge Spark, the provider of data science and AI apprenticeships, has inducted more than 100 professionals in its latest cohort to undertake apprenticeships in data science, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).

Business videos attract customers through eight marketing channels at once. EIGHT! And all eight can be used simultaneously! We conducted a survey and found that on average customers use no more than two of them. Don't do that. Since you paid for a cool video, make the most of it!

Recruitment platform, Tempo has conducted extensive research into hundreds of amazing companies to create the Super Startups list - the 50 best startups to work in London in 2021.

This year has been more turbulent than most. From setting out strategic business goals to embarking on new personal adventures, plans set out - in all aspects of life - have been well and truly rumbled. However, as businesses try to navigate the choppy waters posed by the pandemic and the changing needs of their people, customers and suppliers, they should strive to take advantage of this window of opportunity by rethinking how they operate.

The testing and development phase, can either be one of the most enjoyable experiences when it comes to creating a hardware product, or one of the most difficult that makes you question and change everything you have worked on so far.

The Secret Leaders Podcast is now launching its sixth season (starting with John Cleese), Secret Leaders has rapidly grown into one of the UK’s most popular business podcasts (often ranking number 1 according to Apple). Hosted by serial founder Dan Murray-Serter whose entertaining but intimate style allows him to elicit surprising and personal revelations from his guests, and here we get a chance to read about some of the first episode.

Private equity firm, Grafton Capital has invested £7m into Third Financial, the fast growing, innovative investment platform and software provider. Grafton Capital’s investment takes it to majority ownership of the business, with £1.5m of fresh capital being injected onto the balance sheet.

Spike Global, a UK-based PropTech company, has grown it’s client list by an impressive 120% in the last 9 months, despite market difficulties. Alongside new clients, Spike is also expanding into new developments from existing clients including Wardian London, EcoWorld Ballymore’s residential led development in Canary Wharf.

Allica Bank has seen a surge in demand for new business lending since the national lockdown ended, and has just reached the joint milestone of issuing over £250m of approvals in principle in 2020, and over £100m in committed loan offers since June to established SMEs across the UK.

New research published by Sage plc and Capital Economics finds that unlocking SME digital investment will be critical in helping small and medium size businesses remain resilient as a wave of local lockdowns trigger ongoing uncertainty - and could also deliver major benefits to the UK economy.