Digital firms in Tech City UK’s Future Fifty raise £470m as international expansion increases October 21, 2015 Companies in the Future Fifty programme have raised £470m in funding during the first nine months of 2015, up 63 per cent on the total raised throughout the whole of 2014. Tech City UK, which runs the programme, said the “exceptional fundraising activity” was linked to “unprecented rates of international expansion”. Publicly funded Tech City [...]
Judge P2P firms on whether they’re profitable – not just on how much money they’ve lent October 19, 2015 Three years ago this week, the veteran venture capitalist Robin Klein made the case in these pages for greater support for UK high growth technology companies in their push into mainstream London capital markets. Over time, confidence grew and several good firms were helped onto the public markets through the London Stock Exchange’s High Growth [...]
The 12-week total body transformation workout and exercise plan: week 2 October 19, 2015 What were your goals? I’m like a lot of people: I played sports throughout my early 20s, then I got a proper job in the City and started working late nights and going for after-work drinks. I’d just let myself go, basically. I was eating loads of take away, had got myself a beer belly. [...]
The world’s 10 best airports 2015 in pictures from Singapore Changi International and Seoul Incheon to Tokyo Haneda October 19, 2015 Killing time before a flight is hardly a pleasant experience. It’s crowded, stressful, and the chairs are always uncomfortable… But maybe we’re just flying from the wrong airports? The top 10 airports in the world have been ranked by Sleeping in Airports, based on users’s votes. Asian airports outstrip the rest by far, making up [...]
The ultimate connection: Hyperoptic’s Dana Tobak on recalcitrant councils and politics in taxis October 18, 2015 The thing some have been slow to come to terms with is that BT is not the only solution," says Dana Tobak, when I ask her what the UK is doing wrong when it comes to internet provision. Tobak co-founded fibre-based internet service provider Hyperoptic in 2011. She and business partner Boris Ivanovic, who she [...]
A third of people visit shopping centres to eat rather than shop, says CBRE October 15, 2015 You would think that most people’s immediate instinct when entering a shopping centre would be to grab and run – before it all gets too much. Not so, according to new research from CBRE, which reveals that a third of all visitors to shopping centres across Europe, South Africa and the Middle East will visit [...]
Peeple, the controversial human-reviewing app, has the right idea. Let’s start rating one another constantly October 15, 2015 Peeple, the controversial new rating app that’s been dubbed “Yelp for people”, launches this week amid concerns that giving star ratings to fellow human beings is unethical, creepy and will render us all vulnerable to a horrifying new realm of online abuse the likes of which the internet has never seen. Which is all well [...]
Nick Hewer on Uber, Jack Whitehall, true entrepreneurship and the dream of a Labour Party coup October 11, 2015 I’m very wobbly. I feel homeless – it’s a huge hole,” says Nick Hewer who, after nine years and 10 series as Alan Sugar’s right-hand man, has left The Apprentice. But the 71 year-old businessman isn’t talking about leaving the show; he’s describing what it feels like to have voted Labour since 1964 and now [...]
Cultures collide on the Jersey shore: The enduring UK weekend getaway October 9, 2015 I got into a taxi in Jersey and asked the driver to take me to The Horizon hotel. “You what?” he said. The Horizon hotel? “Don’t you mean l’oreezon, love?” he replied, breaking into a French patois, mid-sentence. It was then I realised I wasn’t in Blighty anymore. Things are different here; you can’t just [...]
London Bridge is UK commuters’ least favourite train station October 8, 2015 If there's one thing Londoners like to complain about, it's its transport system – but now new research has revealed exactly how London's train stations compare to each other and to the rest of the country. A survey of nearly 11,000 commuters by TransportFocus found that between April – June 2015 customer satisfaction levels for London Bridge to be [...]