Venture Capital Funding

Checkout.com raises Europe’s biggest ever early-stage funding round

Checkout.com raises $230m in record Series A funding, valuing it close to $2bn.

Alternative Finance for Business

Internet giants set to grow SME finance market by £1.4bn within a decade

Tech giants and P2P lenders will carve out a 37pc of SME lending market by 2030 says PwC

Technology

Tech start-ups bullish with 79 per cent expecting to boost turnover in coming year

Two thirds of UK technology businesses will seek investment, while 91 per cent plan to hire more staff.

Alternative Finance for Business

White Oak UK and Spotcap team up to provide range of SME finance

SME financiers offer mutual referral service as entrepreneurs lose interest in bringing in external finance for fear of losing control.

Venture Capital Funding

UK venture capital in fintech nudges up 2pc in first quarter to £497m

Britain remains top fintech market for VCs in Europe, ahead of Germany

Venture Capital Funding

Total EIS funds down by one third in 2018

But money for tech-driven start-ups increases as government corrals investors towards growth businesses

Banking

Sharia start-up funding boom as UK leads in Islamic finance

Assets of banks offering Islamic finance growing at 7% per year, according to Thomson Reuters

Banking

NatWest doubles its Growth Fund pot for small businesses to £6bn

Growth Fund has already deployed nearly £3bn of initial funding pot, with 30% deployed to green businesses

Growth Planning

Are you on track to be running a $1bn unicorn business?

Have you got what it takes to be running a fabled $1bn unicorn business? A study by recruitment firm Pareto Law finds they have some surprising things in common

Alternative Finance for Business

Funding Circle increases SME loans by 23% to £644m in first quarter

Peer-to-peer lender lends £419m to British SMEs alone between January and March

Growth Planning

What is OKR? – how to avoid the magpie effect when scaling your business

We’ve all done it. Been sidetracked by a new, shiny thing taking our eye off our real business objective. You need Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to stay focused, says Roger Longden

Funding

Government confirms extra £200m backing for British Business Bank

Treasury cash designed to help firms access finance as European Investment Fund money disappears in wake of UK leaving EU