2 February 

The winners of the Enterprise Investment Scheme Association’s (EISA) annual awards, which recognise outstanding investment performance, excellent service and valued contributions to the EIS sector, have been announced.

2 February 

EIS specialist, Oxford Capital, has launched an easy-to-read guide which explains the EIS in detail.  

EIS demand could massively outstrip supply at tax year-end.

2 February 

Calculus Capital, the private equity fund manager and Enterprise Investment Scheme and VCT specialist, has been named Best EIS Manager in the Enterprise Investment Scheme Association (EISA) Awards.

2 February 

University of Edinburgh Business School has announced this year’s programme of events for Startup Festival 2017 next month. It’s the city’s biggest festival for entrepreneurs and students, to celebrate Edinburgh and Scotland as great places to start a business. 

February 2017

MMC Ventures' David Kelnar looks at the dynamics of the UK AI market

With every paradigm shift in technology, waves of innovation follow as companies improve and then reimagine processes. Today we are in the early stages of the global artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. Machine learning algorithms, whose results improve with experience, enable us to find patterns in large data sets and make predictions more effectively — about people, equipment, systems and processes. (For an accessible introduction to AI, read our Primer.) But what are the dynamics of AI entrepreneurship in the UK?

Below, we share six powerful dynamics we see that are shaping the UK AI market— from changing activity levels and areas of focus, to trends in monetisation and the size and staging of investment.

1 February 

The Virtual Technology Cluster Group, which connects small innovative companies with blue chip organisations seeking innovation, is raising capital to support the high growth businesses within its network.

February 2017 

When you’re just starting out, being an entrepreneur can be lonely. The very fact that your job is the business that you have crafted and are passionate about means that you can never quite stop working. The enormous time demands that a business can have when you’re first getting it going can mean that you start to feel isolated. And friends and family may not appreciate the strength of your passion for your start-up – when you’re not an entrepreneur yourself, there’s only so far you can understand the experiences of someone who is.

February 2017

It can be tempting to adopt a Luddite view of crowdfunding websites. “They can simply upload a flurry of presentations and see what sticks.” Yet these platforms have evolved into some of the most effective online matchmakers. 40% of Seedrs and 50% of Crowdcube startups reach their funding goal, while their German peers even score success rates of 90%+ (eg. Seedmatch and Companisto). What then is their winning formula?

@arthurkrebbers

February 2017

On the 17th January, Prime Minister Theresa May outlined 12 objectives sought from a proposed “hard” Brexit. The point that really caught my attention, and that of Britain’s science and tech community was point 10 - keep the UK the best place for science and innovation.

31 January  

Smart technology company Camfridge have overfunded to £640,254.78 on online investment platform SyndicateRoom. This equals 128% of the original target, £499,990. Camfridge is developing energy-efficient, gas-free, lower-cost technology for refrigeration appliances.

31 January 

30 January 

Scaling up and not starting up is now the biggest challenge for technology businesses, according to the CEO of Mercia Technologies PLC, one of the most active investors in UK technology.