European companies raised a record-breaking €10.6bn of venture capital during the first six months of 2019 according to analysis by Refinitiv.

Technology sectors in the UK are thriving and have thus brought about an increased level of awareness to the public consciousness. 

The majority of smaller businesses do not seek advice when applying for external finance to grow their business, despite the fact that having access to the right information can make the difference between success and failure, Piers Linney, the former Dragons’ Den investor, says.

PIMFA, the trade association for investment managers and financial advisers, has launched the 2019 CEO Sentiment Research Report, the latest report in the annual CEO Sentiment series.

Proving to investors that your company has the legs to offer them a significant return on investment down the line is no small task for any entrepreneur, but is especially impressive for those with little experience, and whose abilities may often be underestimated.

Three fintech mega-deals totalling $87 billion set the scene for a record-breaking $120 billion in disclosed transaction value for the sector in a ‘white-hot’ first half of 2019, reveals Hampleton Partners, in its latest global Fintech M&A Market Report.

Hampleton Partners, which specialises in international technology M&A and corporate finance, noted that all three of the top transactions were in the payments processing segment: Fidelity National Information Services acquired Worldpay for $43.6bn; Fiserv acquired First Data for $22bn and Global Payments acquired Total System Services for $21.2bn.

The UK tech sector has attracted more foreign investment in the first seven months of 2019 than it did during the whole of last year, according to latest industry figures, and has overtaken the US for foreign investment, per capita. 

Private equity fundraising for Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) hit the highest annual level in a decade in 2018 with €1.8 billion, according to new data from Invest Europe.

As the talent dilemma continues, UK businesses are ramping up their focus on retaining and upskilling their existing workforce. New research [1] from recruitment specialist Robert Half UK, reveals more than one in three senior executives (31%) believe employee retention and training are the two main talent management concerns facing their industry until 2020. Talent retention is a particular concern for large businesses (35%), compared to one in three (29%) small and medium-sized businesses.

Beauhurst has published its overview of the high-growth ecosystem in Scotland. There are almost 2,000 active ambitious companies in the country, most of which are buoyed by fairly different methods of support than the rest of the UK. Although private equity and venture capital funds dominate the funding scene across the UK, it is devolved government bodies and angel investors which are pulling the most weight in Scotland. So what do funding trends look like, and which other means of support are high-growth Scottish businesses drawing on?

In this article, Beauhurst highlights the top fund raisings in 2019 by companies that were founded in the same year.

According to the emotively-named ‘Misery Index’, the US is better off today than ever before. Low inflation and low unemployment, the latter backed up by today’s relatively steady US jobs report data, are creating an apparently benign environment for the US population.