Meet Prodigy Finance: The fintech firm that went global on day one February 14, 2017 With Trump in the White House and a hard Brexit on the horizon, protectionism is back on the menu. Many entrepreneurs are concerned about the implications for the free movement of goods, capital and people. But at a recent Leap 100 breakfast, chief executive and co-founder of Prodigy Finance, Cameron Stevens, sounded a note of [...]
DriveTribe co-founders Richard Hammond and Ernesto Schmitt talk dating, driverless cars and excluding Jeremy Clarkson from music ventures February 13, 2017 How would you transition from celebrity to business magnate? If you’ve already done well in life, one option is to wind down. This is not, however, the option Richard Hammond and sidekicks James May and Jeremy Clarkson are going for. In case they didn’t have enough to do launching Amazon’s The Grand Tour, they’ve also [...]
Trivago’s boss on how the travel group finds the hotel that fits you perfectly February 13, 2017 While Trivago was meeting American investors ahead of its December listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange, chief executive Rolf Schroemgens realised many of the people he met had a very limited understanding of the company. Despite a boost to the hotel search engine’s profile in 2013 when American travel giant Expedia snapped up 63.5 per cent of the company [...]
This is why a Silicon Valley entrepreneur believes London could produce the next Facebook February 12, 2017 By the time Clara Shih turned 30, she was a Starbucks board member, had raised $21m (£16.7m) for her social media startup and had become a bestselling author. A Stanford and Oxford graduate, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur founded software company Hearsay Social [now Hearsay Systems] in 2009 to make financial giants look slick on social media [...]
Nine ways Donald Trump has already fallen out with American voters February 10, 2017 As the latest batch of polling results are released, Donald Trump finds himself increasingly at odds with both Republican and Democrat voters, it turns out. It's well known Trump’s approval ratings are the worst of any new President – but new figures suggest they have continued to slide since he took office on 20 January. According [...]
Twitter shares sink at the open after yesterday’s $1bn selloff February 10, 2017 Twitter's share price sank further on the opening bell in New York today, after its results sent prices into a nosedive yesterday. Shares fell 3.6 per cent to 15.80 at the open, after they plummeted more than 12 per cent yesterday, wiping $1bn after the company's value. Its fourth quarter earnings, posted yesterday, showed revenues had edged [...]
Focus On Victoria: A £4bn investment in housing, retail and infrastructure is making it a destination in its own right February 10, 2017 If the Queen’s getting a £369m refurbishment of Buckingham Palace, it seems only fair that the neighbourhood surrounding it should get a polish, too. £4bn should just about cover it, and that’s how much has been invested in the area by developer Land Securities over the last five years. Around £700bn of that has gone [...]
The UK government’s crackdown on encryption threatens to undermine London’s fintech boom February 10, 2017 Talk of calamity befalling corporate Britain as we negotiate our EU exit is typically overblown. Nevertheless there is a potentially serious conflict in the making between the UK government’s stated desire to maintain access to certain online data for reasons of national security and the continental European determination to institute a modern system of information [...]
Apple boss Tim Cook has spent the day meeting the PM and Mayor of London February 9, 2017 Apple boss Tim Cook, arguably the most important man in tech, has spent the day meeting with British politicians. He started a whistle stop tour of the UK by heading to Glasgow, where he picked up an honorary degree from its university yesterday. And this morning he headed to 10 Downing Street for a chat with [...]
This is what Londoners want within walking distance of their homes February 9, 2017 When it comes to buying a home, Londoners are the most demanding customers in the country. In the UK as a whole a staggering 25 per cent of people say they "wouldn't need anything in particular" near their homes, according to a survey by YouGov. Read more: This is how far house prices have plunged in [...]