London and Europe are getting a new £500m tech startup VC fund as Chinese-backed Cocoon Networks launches January 19, 2016 London's tech startups are set for a new injection of cash worth as much as half a billion pounds as a new Chinese-backed venture capital fund launches. Private equity firms China Equity Group and Hanxin Capital will launch Cocoon Networks with £500m to invest in UK and European tech companies which show potential for success in China. The wide-ranging fund will span fintech, biotech, medical devices [...]
How do you make coffee in space? British astronaut Tim Peake posts a video revealing the unglamorous truth aboard the International Space Station January 19, 2016 How do astronauts make their coffee? British astronaut Tim Peake has posted a video from aboard the International Space Station to reveal the answer to this question – and it’s surprisingly unglamorous. If you thought making coffee on the International Space Station has been a cinch since Nasa’s promise to deliver a space-ready espresso machine to [...]
Insurers including Direct Line, Aviva and Admiral band together to examine future of driverless cars January 18, 2016 Some of Britain's largest motor insurers, including Direct Line, Aviva and Admiral, have banded together to plan for a future when driverless cars are the norm. The Automated Driving Insurance Group, which will be led by trade body the Association of British Insurers (ABI), is assessing the insurance implications of the rise of driverless technology. The group [...]
Friends Reunited is finally closing January 18, 2016 Before Facebook, there was Friends Reunited. Dating all the way back to the pre-iPhone, dial-up internet, turn of the century, the British social network was born in the original dotcom boom and fared about as well. But finally, sixteen years later, the social network will shut for good, leaving a "handful" of users and its founders with a tear in their eye [...]
How Spotify and streaming is changing the world of music piracy in 2016 January 18, 2016 Piracy is still a massive problem – both in the UK and globally, but the habits of 14 billion visits in 2015 reveal the changing face of music piracy. The main trend of 2015 was a shift towards music web downloads and streaming rather than torrenting. With a decline of 20 per cent for the [...]
Fintech firms falling behind FTSE 100 firms on boardroom diversity with less than one in ten female directors January 18, 2016 Fintech firms may be leading the City when it comes to developing financial innovations, but when it comes to boardroom diversity, they’re falling far behind. The UK’s top 50 fintech firms have just nine per cent women on their boards, research by recruitment firm Astbury Marsden reveals. This makes them three times less diverse than [...]
WhatsApp will drop subscriptions to go free and its new plan to monetise is identical to Facebook Messenger January 18, 2016 WhatsApp is ditching its subscription fee for a new approach that sounds suspiciously familiar. In a blog post, the company announced: "…WhatsApp will no longer charge subscription fees. For many years, we've asked some people to pay a fee for using WhatsApp after their first year. As we've grown, we've found that this approach hasn't worked [...]
Davos 2016: Why fintech innovation has put us on the brink of a “fourth industrial revolution” January 18, 2016 Most of us will associate the term “industrial revolution” with images of the smog, steam and clanking heavy machinery that transformed society in the 19th century. Since then, society has witnessed two more industrial revolutions, advances in electronics and IT, and now economists are heralding the advent of the “fourth industrial revolution”. This new industrial [...]
Fintech is about to lead the financial services sector into a new era January 18, 2016 I have been leading our firm's involvement in the CBI/PwC Financial Services Survey for several years now. It has been very interesting to see the ebb and flow of the financial services sector during this period. I have observed the doom and gloom of the financial crisis, the spike of optimism shortly after, the reality [...]
Airbus and Uber are partnering for helicopters on-demand January 17, 2016 Aircraft maker Airbus and taxi upstart Uber will partner to provide people with a helicopter on-demand service, it has been revealed. Airbus boss Tom Enders told the Wall Street Journal of the plans at the DLD conference in Germany, saying it is a pilot project due to launch in several weeks. Read more: Uber just had its billionth [...]