Gimme 5: Startups crowdfunding this month September 22, 2014 Rollasole Target: £150,000 for 7.5 per cent equity If you’ve seen a pair of bendy pumps someone’s shoved in their handbag, you’ll know how useful Rollasole shoes are. Raised: £130,210 via Crowdcube 42 days left Line-Up Target: £200,000 for 9.09 per cent equity Line-Up’s technology collects and collates “what’s on” information from newspapers, radio [...]
BlackBerry swoops for London mobile software startup Movirtu September 11, 2014 BLACKBERRY, the struggling smartphone maker, has bought London-based startup Movirtu, a firm that makes software that allows users to have multiple phone numbers on the same device. BlackBerry yesterday said the move would help it target smartphone users who increasingly use a single device for personal calls and business. Chief executive John Chen said: “In [...]
Blackberry buys London startup Movirtu September 11, 2014 Is this a sign of things to come for the new, leaner Blackberry? The embattled mobile manufacturer has bought Movirtu, a London-based mobile software startup, to target smartphone users who increasingly use a single device for personal calls and business. Movirtu provides a virtual mobile platform which enables users to have more than one mobile [...]
Cubicle to co-working space: London startups want to poach City workers September 5, 2014 More than 30 of London’s tech startups are looking to hire City workers away from their corporate cubicles to the world of beanbags and co-working spaces. Startup hiring conference Uncubed is hosting its first event in London, playing matchmaker between talent in traditional corporate jobs and creative technology companies, and urging people to ditch their [...]
Why I left the City for a startup – and why you should too September 5, 2014 If there’s a reason I left my finance career to build startups it’s probably this: vomit. It happened one night at 10 or 11pm on the 33rd floor of a gleaming investment bank. It wasn’t unusual that I was there so late – in fact, it was mostly the norm, and I’d been run haggard [...]
Why it’s time to unleash corporate venture capital to spur on startup growth September 4, 2014 The Bank of England’s small business lending figures disappointed again last week. Access to finance – especially for small firms – has been a perennial problem, exacerbated by the financial crisis and downturn. It’s therefore surprising that, amid all the ways government has tried to increase access to finance over the last few years, it [...]
As entrepreneurs call for tax cuts to support startups, have politicians been complacent? September 3, 2014 David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham, says Yes. There is a real lack of ambition in support for the tech sector from government. Some efforts are being made to improve London’s hi-tech infrastructure, for example, but it’s concerning that the capital still comes twenty-sixth in the UK table of high-speed broadband connectivity, and falls behind [...]
The Startup Manifesto: Why the digital economy has never been a bigger political issue September 3, 2014 The UK’s digital startups are thriving – we have the fastest-growing digital economy in the G20 and have created 11 tech companies worth over $1bn in the last decade. British digital successes like Zoopla, Shazam and YPlan are now household names, and in London alone the tech sector is forecast to create 46,000 jobs and [...]
Top startups in call to keep London #1 European tech hub September 2, 2014 London's top startups and venture capital firms will today urge the UK government to relax rules and taxes in order to maintain the capital’s status as the top European tech hub. The so-called Startup Manifesto – written by policy group Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec) led by former government adviser Guy Levin – [...]
Former government adviser Guy Levin leads the startup charge September 2, 2014 When Guy Levin left his job as a government adviser last year – where he’d worked since 2010, jumping from the Conservative Campaign Headquarters to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and finally the Department for International Development – he was passionate about bridging the gap between startups and government. “I’d always been interested [...]