Fintech startup GoHenry just smashed crowdfunding records (and that’s a problem) June 7, 2016 A fintech firm which teaches kids how to manage money has smashed its fundraising target, becoming the most highly funded crowdfunded business in Britain. The success of startup GoHenry, which raised just shy of £4m and surpasses the previous record of £3.5m for JustPark, has spurred crowdfunding platform Crowdcube to call for the existing limit on the value of investments to be raised. Early-stage businesses can currently raise [...]
Businesses are stockpiling bitcoin to pay hacking ransoms June 7, 2016 Businesses are preparing for the threat of a cyber attack by stocking up on digital currencies such as bitcoin to pay hackers' ransoms, new research reveals. A third of firms in the UK are stockpiling in the event of such a cyber attack and the country's largest firms are willing to pay more than £50,000 [...]
Deutsche Bank is ditching its plans for a digital bank June 6, 2016 Digital challenger banks can breath a sigh of relief – competition just got a little less crowded. Deutsche Bank was moving with the times with its plans for a new digital bank, revealed late last year in a board reshuffle. Now, it's had a change of heart and has ditched plans for the new venture, a [...]
More money for proptech: HouseSimple raises £13m from Carphone Warehouse boss June 6, 2016 More money is flowing into up and coming property technology (proptech) companies, with the founder of Carphone Warehouse leading a new multimillion pound investment in online estate agent HouseSimple. Sir Charles Dunstone lead the £13m funding in the firm which ditches the high cost of traditional agency fees, along with his business partner Roger Taylor. An institutional investor [...]
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg’s social media accounts were hacked this weekend June 6, 2016 Everyone knows that using the same password for all your online accounts makes it ten times easier for hackers to access your information – but even Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg can't help taking the lazy route when it comes to internet security. The tech boss was the target of hackers over the weekend, when his [...]
An ex-Nasa chief has revealed a stealth startup that’s built “military-grade” Apple Siri voice recognition technology June 6, 2016 A startup founded by a former top boss at Nasa has emerged from so-called stealth mode with technology that claims to beat Apple, Google and Microsoft's voice recognition technology. Dan Goldin, who spent nearly all of the 1990s leading Nasa, has revealed KnuEdge, a machine learning company that already boasts Fortune 500 clients and $100m in private funding despite its under the radar nature [...]
Picking up the Slack: CMO Bill Macaitis on why word-of-mouth is central to the unicorn’s success June 6, 2016 "We're selling organisational transformation," says Bill Macaitis, chief marketing officer of Slack – Silicon Valley darling and contender for the fastest growing B2B software-as-a-service company in history. Slack is more than a workplace messenger. It is a communication and collaboration tool which facilitates meetings, provides access to shared documents, and breaks down silos between apps by integrating Twitter, [...]
As social media platforms get better at monetising, what should marketers expect? June 6, 2016 Monetising is a top priority for the world’s leading social platforms like Twitter and Periscope, and recent figures suggest they’re getting better at it. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, the UK’s social media ad spend rose 51 per cent last year to £574m, so what developments should marketers expect from these firms over the coming [...]
Stressed out Brits want robots and virtual assistants to pick up the slack June 6, 2016 Overloaded Brits are increasingly willing to let technology pick up the slack of modern life, with more than half of us happy to hand over control to robots and virtual assistants. Making appointments and getting a smart coffee machine to order refills are just some of the tasks which people said they were willing to give up to technology, according to a global survey [...]
Firing up innovation in Japan: Entrepreneurship has been frowned up in Japan but a new breed of youngsters are hoping to make the country a world class technology player once again June 6, 2016 The eighties were a boom time for Japan, when the country’s high-tech innovations meant the likes of Sony, Nintendo, Mitsubishi and Toshiba were global leaders. Its technology had changed society, from the appearance of the first bullet train in 1964, to Sony’s Walkman in 1979, through to the Nintendo GameBoy in 1989. Japan’s dominance in [...]