Tech Start-ups have made a habit of mocking the status quo and asking us, the public, to think outside of the everyday constraints – think driving to work, getting up to turn the lights off, pushing trolleys round the supermarket – that we assumed would be part and parcel of our every-day lives forever. And …
On 3 Month Anniversary of Brexit, London VC Partner Sees Good Prospects For London’s Tech Industry To Ride Out The Storm
One of the earliest angel investors in CityMapper, the London based journey mapping app which has gone on to raise $50m in 3 rounds of funding, says that 3 months on, he believes Brexit has left the nation “in limbo” and falling behind countries such as Germany, France and Sweden but that a post Brexit …
The Best Blog Post You Will Read This Year? Entrepreneur Michalis Gkontas Opens Up (And Then Some) About Athens, London, Loss & Home Cooking!
An entrepreneur from Athens whose London-based start-up was the darling of the British media for a few glorious weeks has written an inspiring, warts and all blog post about the highs he experienced riding the crest of a wave of publicity, the lows he went through as his business failed, and the “Pivot under pressure” …
City FinTech Firm Pay2Global Acquired By Amsterdam Based TerraPay
A Dutch mobile first international payment network, TerraPay, incubated by Mahindra Comviva, the Gurgaon, Haryana based value added service provider for mobile operators, has acquired UK-based Pay2Global limited following regulatory approvals. TerraPay has acquired 100% of Pay2Global for an undisclosed amount; Pay2Global is a digital international money transfer firm regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority …
What’s That Coming Over The Hill – It’s My New Hairdryer? UK To Be Amazon’s Guinea Pig For Drone Testing
It’s really happening! Amazon have announced they will be working alongside the Civil Aviation Authority to test drive autonomous drones with a view to launching the service. Amazon has agreed a partnership with the UK Civil Aviation Authority that will allow the online shopping site to perform beyond-line-of-sight test flights in rural and suburban areas. …
Can Prop-Tech Firm, With A £1m Raise Courtesy Of 500 Startups, Disrupt The £3.5bn Estate Agent Sector?
Would you rather sell your property through a hipster style tech platform, paying £400 in fees, or an estate agent, paying £5k? Property-Tech firm Settled celebrated the completion of a £1m seed round a fortnight ago, led by Silicon Valley based 500 Startups, whose founder Dave McClure knows a thing or two about seriously disruptive …
MWC ’16 – The Best Bits
We talked about Zuckerberg; we discussed 4YFN; we looked at what happened after hours in Barcelona’s bars and hotels; so now that Mobile World Congress is over for another year in Spain (although it starts all over again in July, in Shanghai, with the theme “Mobile Is Me”) it’s time to look at the key …
Postcard from Barcelona: 4YFN, MWC and Swedish Beers!
When one door closes, another opens; ticket holders at 4YFN, Barcelona’s mobile start-up conference are flooding through the doors of big brother MWC 2016 today to join the nearly 100,000 fellow attendees to have walked the halls and floors of this gigantic, genre-defining conference, sniffing out opportunities, making contacts and signing contracts that will secure …
Flubit, the disruptive ecommerce start-up taking aim at Amazon and E-Bay, are wrestling back the initiative with the launch of BeFlubit
A few months back I spoke with Flubit co-founder and CEO Bertie Stephens and his COO Steph Fiala about how they had managed to create one of the most enviable disruptive start-up cultures in London; quite an achievement when you consider the competition. We spoke about team bonding exercises, share options for every staff member, …