Focus On Bloomsbury: House prices are blooming marvellous in this intellectual corner of central London June 16, 2016 Bloomsbury conjures up images of fusty intellectuals like former residents Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, EM Forster and John Maynard Keynes. Home to austere, prestigious institutions like the British Museum, the Royal Portrait Gallery and University College London, it isn’t necessarily somewhere you’d think of moving to. But the recent clamour for central London property has [...]
Record venture capital investment into London tech companies reaches £1.56bn January 5, 2016 Venture capitalists poured a record $2.28bn (£1.56bn) into London’s tech scene last year, according to data from London and Partners, the Mayor’s promotional company. London secured 63 per cent of investment in the UK, which is a testament to London's “world-class talent pool and culture of innovation and entrepreneurial spirit,” according to Mayor Boris Johnson. [...]
London food delivery startup Deliveroo takes away $70m series C funding from Greenoaks Capital, Index Ventures, Accel and Hoxton Ventures July 28, 2015 A London startup which delivers food from some of Britain's favourite high-street restaurants such as Wagamama and Gourmet Burger Kitchen straight to your door, has landed $70m (£45m) of new investment to expand internationally, including backing from the firm behind Just Eat. Deliveroo's series C round was led by Greenoaks Capital and existing investor Index [...]
Venture Capital investing in the UK reaches $1.3bn in the last quarter of 2015, bucking global trends January 21, 2016 Venture Capital firms invested $1.3bn (£910m) in UK companies in the last three months of 2015, capping off a record-breaking year. In total, UK start-ups received $4.75bn in venture capital funding last year from 400 deals, according to the latest data from KPMG and venture capital database CB Insights. This bucked the global trend: there was a 30 [...]
Working Lunch review: Vita Mojo brings total food customisation and cashless eating to the City April 5, 2016 Vita Mojo 22 Carter Lane, EC4V WHAT? The City’s first entirely cashless restaurant that allows you to order and completely customise your food online or via one of the restaurant’s iPads. Its ultra-healthy menu is cooked on the premises using specially-sourced, organic ingredients and served up hot to suit pretty much any diet you can [...]
UK attracts record £2.46bn of venture capital investment into tech and London secures more than 60 per cent of the funding January 6, 2016 Venture capitalists invested a record $3.6bn (£2.46bn) in the UK's tech scene in 2015, up 70 per cent from the year before, according to data from London and Partners, the Mayor’s promotional company. London-based crowdfunding company, Funding Circle secured the largest single deal of the year with a $150m funding round led by DST Global in April [...]
One of the UK’s biggest tech venture capital investors Accel Partners now has $500m more to play with April 12, 2016 The venture capital firm which was an early backer of Facebook, bet on start startup Slack, and most recently invested in Deliveroo and Funding Circle in the UK, has raised $500m (£351m) for a new fund to invest in startups across Europe and Israel. “Entrepreneurship is flourishing everywhere across Europe and Israel; we’ve never seen so many great founders, both gritty and [...]
Britain will retain its golden spirit of enterprise if we keep backing entrepreneurs July 5, 2016 One of the more astonishing features of the British economy over the last few months, and indeed the last turbulent few weeks, has been the robustness of the UK’s small business owners, particularly its growing army of high-growth tech entrepreneurs. In the most challenging of environments leading up to the Brexit vote, the London Stock [...]
Tayyabs can now be brought right to your door as Take Eat Easy joins London’s restaurant delivery trend after raising £12m in investment February 11, 2016 Belgium’s Take Eat Easy has expanded into London after raising £12m in funding. The Brussels-based start-up offers a high end food delivery service, where users can order directly from popular restaurants which do not normally offer a takeaway service. The food is then delivered straight to their door via courier. Investors include Germany’s Rocket Internet, DN [...]
The four characteristics that make a Leap 100 company April 20, 2016 Each company in the Leap 100 is different. But they all excel in four crucial areas which distinguish them from Britain’s many other innovative and growing companies. In the entrepreneurs, we have looked for leadership and ambition, and in their companies we have looked into their team and money. This is why these qualities are so important. Leadership [...]