Chancellor hails London tech success as capital beats European competitors again September 20, 2021 Chancellor Rishi Sunak today hailed London’s bounce back from the pandemic as new figures show the capital is sprinting ahead of rival European tech hubs. London has attracted more venture capital investment to its startups than anywhere else in Europe and now boasts more unicorns – firms valued at more than $1bn – than France [...]
UK tech: Record raise of £13.5bn pushes number of British unicorns to 105 September 20, 2021 The UK tech sector raised £13.5bn in the first six months of this year, almost three times more than the same period a year ago, according to new data. As a result, the number of British unicorns has jumped to 105. Companies including fintech giant Revolut, online video conference business Hopin and online car sales [...]
Golden year for startups: London may be heading for a post-pandemic unicorn boom September 15, 2021 The last 15 months has provided every aspect of society with an unprecedented challenge, not least to small firms and founders. The response of this section of business, however, has been nothing short of inspiring, with nearly 800,000 new firms incorporated in 2020. The response of the investors who back them has been equally stirring, [...]
Exclusive: ‘I felt sorry for the people of Belgium,’ says Estonia’s Prime Minister September 14, 2021 An artificial intelligence assistant for every citizen? AI to help unemployed people back into work or to suggest a career change? Bots telling you when to visit your GP? All this may sound a tad futuristic, but not for the government of the tiny Baltic state of Estonia. In fact, the country has grand ambitions [...]
Beijing turns up heat on data holding firms, seeking to divide Ant Group’s Alipay September 13, 2021 Beijing regulators, who are acting increasingly hawkish around sensitive data firms, are reportedly seeking to break up Ant Group’s loans business Alipay to form a separate app instead. Under the proposal, Jack Ma’s Ant Group will hand over its user data to a new credit scoring joint venture with state-backed firms, the Financial Times first [...]
Creaking Cairo cedes to new high-tech capital with smart cards and AI-driven apps September 3, 2021 Egypt’s new administrative capital will be hi-tech. Residents will use smart cards and apps to get about, under the watchful eye of a far-reaching surveillance system. Watch the full report.
SEC double hit: Robinhood comes under scrutiny for key revenue stream and share sale filing September 1, 2021 Trading platform Robinhood has told investors that the US financial watchdog is reviewing a filing of a share sale by a group of its shareholders, a day after its share price sank on two other bouts of bad news. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) review prevents any sales being made off the filing [...]
Bucking the trend: Revolut sets no vaccination requirement for US staff September 1, 2021 Bucking the Wall Street trend, Revolut will not require its US staff to be vaccinated in order to get into the office. The US boss of the tech darling told Financial News Revolut had chosen not to make vaccination against Covid-19 a requirement of returning to work in its offices in New York, San Francisco [...]
Exclusive: City’s venture capital guru on Brexit, ESG fundraising and impact investing August 31, 2021 With Brexit just behind us, and the pandemic gradually being brought under control, it seemed like a good time to measure the temperature of London’s venture capital investment space. City A.M. sat down with David Hall, for his first major interview as chairman of the Venture Capital Trust Association, since succeeding Stuart Veale in January [...]
Prosus to pay $4.7bn for rival Indian payments firm in largest buyout yet August 31, 2021 European technology giant Prosus has reportedly put forward $4.7bn for its largest ever deal, to buy Indian payments platform BillDesk, in yet another foreign investment in the country’s blossoming tech sector. BillDesk currently competes with Prosus’s payments firm PayU in India which means the deal will open up a fair portion of the growing payments [...]