Do you have life insurance to protect your dependants? Have you started your pension pot? Do you know how much you have saved towards your retirement?

Official statistics confirm that UK productivity growth is at an all-time low, with output per worker increasing by less than 1% in 2017. However, Britain’s growth companies are bucking the trend with research released today by ECI Partners showing that UK growth companies posted productivity gains of 13.5% for the same period, rising to 18% for companies in TMT and business services and 20% for London firms.

ECI’s 2018 Growth Survey, the only annual survey in the UK focused solely on high growth companies, polls business sentiment and analyses productivity gains. This year’s report shows that companies are achieving these gains by significantly investing in people skills, technology and social media:

Get the full report here: http://www.ecipartners.com/~/media/Files/E/ECI-Partners/ECI_Partners_Culture_Growth_Survey_2018.pdf

Index Ventures tops Beauhurst's table of the UK's most active VC funds.

Following its recent 'Silicon Fen' report looking at tech funding trends in Cambridge, Beauhurst has published its 'Silicon Spires' report into the tech funding scene in Oxford.

Data released by Beauhurst shows that venture capital funding for this the healthcare sector is on course for a significant drop following 2017.  Should we be worried? And what factors are playing into this lack of funding? Beauhurst explores some of the sector's potential weaknesses. 

SeedLegals shares some fascinating insights into UK founder salaries and share vesting.

Private equity and venture capital investment into companies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) reached a record €3.5 billion in 2017, new data from Invest Europe reveals.

A 113% year-on-year increase, this amount surpasses the region’s previous peak in 2008 by 40%, according to the industry association’s Central and Eastern Europe Private Equity Statistics 2017 report, which also shows strong results across fundraising and exits. CEE’s consumer goods and services sector attracted the majority of investment capital with three-quarters of the total, while technology (ICT) followed with 11%. Polish companies were the big draw, receiving 71% of the total amount, followed by those in Romania, Hungary and Latvia respectively.

The EU crowdfunding framework proposed by the European Commission will help to build a capital markets union, foster innovation and support entrepreneurs and SMEs across the EU, says the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in a recently adopted opinion, which strongly supports the Commission's proposals.

The Enterprise Investment Scheme Association (EISA) has released a national and investor representative piece of research, gauging whether the British public and its investors feel that they will be wealthier in a post-Brexit UK, and how they feel the negotiations have gone. 

Online ads are seen as being more intrusive than TV and radio adverts, according to new research from instantprint, so how should this affect your marketing approach?

In its latest analysis of global Mergers & Acquisitions activity in Enterprise Software, Hampleton Partners reports that the sector delivered its best half year on record with 522 transactions in total. Deal volume was up 11 percent year-over-year and up 15 percent from the previous half-year period. With above $1 billion valuations also rising fast - 14 during the first half of 2018, compared with just five in 2H2017 and three during 1H2017 - records for the sector are already breaking. 

The top three acquirers over the past 30 months were: Wisetech Global, the Australian logistics software company (14 deals, including: Pierbridge Inc and SaaS Transportation); Vista Equity Partners (13 deals, including Allocate Software Plc and Gather Technologies) and Thoma Bravo (12 deals, including MeridianLink Inc and ABC Financial).

Private equity fund distributions have outweighed capital calls by a significant and striking degree over the past five years.

Data from eFront, the world’s leading alternative investment management software and solutions provider, shows that since the start of 2013, distributions from private equity funds have remained at historically high levels, while capital calls have fallen steadily to their lowest level on record, when measured as a proportion of committed capital. 

Download the full report, click here.