The biggest tech IPO of the year is here – and Line popped July 14, 2016 The biggest tech IPO of the year is here, as Line goes public in a dual listing on the Tokyo and New York stock exchanges. The Japanese messaging firm is the sixth most used messaging app in the world, boasting 218m users. Priced at $32.84, shares popped nearly 30 per cent, opening at $42 per share [...]
A beginners guide for reluctant Pokemon Go players July 14, 2016 Come with me on a journey through time and space….. to a world where some grown-ups are more concerned with small cartoon characters than with the state of UK politics (perhaps understandably so). You may have heard the hype around Pokemon Go and wondered what it's all about. Should you get involved? Do you have enough time in your [...]
It’s a myth that VCs and crowdfunding platforms are at war. If you’re raising money, your focus should be on the following July 14, 2016 As equity crowdfunding evolves, the view is that there’s a war underway between venture capitalists and platforms targeting retail investors – as both vye for the best deals. But in reality, the scene remains peaceful. As a VC firm, we view crowdfunding as a complementary finance channel that can find additional and strategic capital for appropriate [...]
How are the alternative finance industry and the $1.6 trillion wealth management market approaching each other? July 14, 2016 If you use an independent financial adviser or wealth manager, they’ve probably never mentioned P2P lending. This might seem strange: there’s been a lot of talk of how the peer-to-peer industry is “moving mainstream”, and volumes reflect that. In 2015, the online alternative finance industry in the UK grew to £3.2bn – an 84 per [...]
How artificial intelligence, peer-to-peer technology and blockchain are changing the insurance industry forever July 14, 2016 Just as fintech is transforming the banking world, “insurtech” has set its sights on the insurance industry. There are firms like Trov, which provides insurance on-demand and enables consumers to catalogue insured belongings. Buzzmove uses home removals data to create a new distribution model for insurance – people are more likely to renew or buy [...]
EU slaps more antitrust charges on Google July 14, 2016 The EU's move against US tech companies when it comes to competition has continued today as the Commission accused Google of further breaches of anti-trust laws. Two further charges have been set out against the search giant by competition chief Margrethe Vestager and claim Google abused its dominant position by "systematically favouring its comparison shopping [...]
Time will standstill on New Year’s Eve – but only for one second July 14, 2016 Time will quite literally be brought to a standstill on New Year's Eve. On 31 December a "leap second" is going to be slapped onto the end of 2016 — which has already had an extra day added to it anyway. Read more: Seven interesting facts you should know about the clock change That's according to timekeepers [...]
Telematics will make you safer and save you money – by disrupting the disrupters July 14, 2016 Telematics – the technology for collecting and analysing driver behaviour – has been transforming the face of car insurance for a long time. Now it is set to play a key role in how people engage with market disrupters such as Uber and Zipcar. These new entrants give people a great deal of flexibility in how [...]
Pokémon Go is an overnight sensation – here are some of the weirdest places people have been catching ’em all July 13, 2016 For those unfamiliar with the franchise, Pokémon is the story of a young boy who abandons his mother to go on an adventure with his best friend, an electric dog called Pikachu. On his quest to cram all of the Pokémon into tiny plastic balls, he befriends strange men in forests and routinely encourages the [...]
Seven locations that show just how crazy the Pokemon Go craze is July 13, 2016 It's been less than a week, but we're all now living in a Pokemon World. At a time of deep political uncertainty, many are no doubt welcoming a little light distraction, but the obsession might well have some influence on the next round of productivity figures as everyone attempts to catch 'em all. The craze has certainly unearthed some insights into human nature, [...]