News
Manchester fintech startup GoodBox has reached its £1 million funding target on leading investment platform Seedrs to expand the team in all areas. This round is part of a larger Series A following a £1.3 million investment earlier this year. The share price for crowd investors remains the same.
Backed by WorldPay and Visa executives, GoodBox is the startup helping charities embrace digital payments by providing a single point of entry through its pioneering hardware, payments and banking platform.
The platform has been designed and developed specifically to manage, grow and maximise the £583 billion of philanthropic transactions made globally each year.
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With UK inflation running at around 2%, a study predicting just a 0.8% increase in Christmas spending this year is bad news for retailers. And it could be worse if a no-deal Brexit happens as the prediction would then be scaled back to 0.2%.
2018’s Christmas season had seen a weak rise that also undershot the inflation figure, but at 1.2%, it was much better than is being forecast for 2019’s not-so-festive season. 2017 had seen a 1.4% rise.
Interestingly though, the research also showed that it’s not only the UK where consumer confidence is absent with Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain also seeing consumer confidence at 10-year lows.
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Fintech startup Revolut has announced a new partnership with Mastercard to launch Revolut cards in the US by the end of the year, as part of an expansion of their relationship enabling the issuance of cards in any market around the world where Mastercard is accepted.
Mastercard has built a strong partnership with Revolut since its launch in 2015 and their participation in the network’s accelerator program, Start Path.
Mastercard and Revolut have had a lot of success in Europe – providing financial services to consumers, from day-to-day money management to market leading foreign exchange solutions.
Today’s announcement confirms the two businesses will partner on a minimum of 50% of all existing and future cards that Revolut will issue in Europe.
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Beauty buffs who frequently find themselves opening multiple tabs in the name of online research may have found the answer to their prayers, in a newly-launched search engine called Mira.
The extensive search engine has been specifically designed to empower users to find beauty products that meet their needs, with the aim of championing transparency and inclusivity in the industry.
Mira lets users compare multiple beauty products, assess their ingredients, access millions of customer reviews and click through to purchase what they want from a selection of retailers, with price comparisons.
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Digital brands remain top of mind for consumers, but its the luxury sector that saw the most growth in 2019, according to the latest Interbrand ranking of the Best Global Brands, released on Thursday.
According to the Interbrand report, Apple, Google and Amazon retained their hold on the top three rankings. Facebook, however, which first entered the Best Global Brands report in 2012, dropped five places from #9 in 2018 to #14 this year.
Other tech names that dominated the top 10 include Microsoft at #4, as well as Samsung at #6, while other long-standing favourites were also able to hold their positions - Coca-Cola (#5), Toyota (#7), Mercedes-Benz (#8), McDonald’s (#9) and Disney (#10) – as top brands.
Still, the power of luxury should not be underestimated, as this sector saw the highest average brand value change against last year’s figures, recording an 11 percent growth rate.
Top performers include Gucci, which ranked #33, jumping 23 percent compared to last year, with a valuation of USD $15,949 million.
Louis Vuitton was equally in the top 25 at #17, before Chanel, which took home the #22 spot.
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Investment into UK legal technology startups reached £61m in 2018, more than doubling the £22m invested in the previous 12 months, shows Legaltech Startup Report 2019, a report by Thomson Reuters and Legal Geek.
The report shows that investment in UK legaltech startups has risen dramatically over the last five years – less than £1.5m was invested in 2014.
Legaltech startups have received at least £62m so far this year, through the first nine months of 2019, surpassing the 2018 total.
The UK is the hub of European legal technology, with UK legaltech startups making up 44% of all legaltech startups in the EU. This is far higher than the UK’s share of the European legal services market (23%). Thomson Reuters and Legal Geek research tracks and analyses investment into 34 of the UK’s fastest-growing startups in the legal technology industry where reliable investment data is available. These businesses have received more than £175m over the last five years with 70%, or £122.5 million, invested since the beginning of 2018.
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London and Luxembourg based Hiro Capital has launched a €100m fund to back UK and EU leaders in the global Games, Esports and Digital Sports sectors.
The founding team includes:
– Ian Livingstone CBE, the game industry legend who co-founded Games Workshop,
– Luke Alvarez, Inspired Entertainment co-founder, and
– Cherry Freeman, Britain’s ‘Coolest Female Founder’ and co-founder of LoveCrafts.
They will use the fund to accelerate the growth of about 20 UK and European Games and Sports innovators.
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It may come as a surprise to some, but Millennial men in the UK spend more time shopping for fashion than women do. That's according to a survey of 2,000 consumers by footwear retailer Deichmann.
The company said that millennial men take as many as 15 days to find the perfect clothes for a party, night out or special occasion. That compares to the 12 days that women spend. And it’s interesting that men also speak to their friends more for advice about fashion. The research showed that the young British men spent 63 minutes a month on average speaking to friends about fashion and what they’re planning to buy, while women spend 55 minutes doing the same.
And it goes further, with young British men also taking more time to look at blogs for fashion inspiration (58 minutes per month compared to 52 minutes for women) as well as watching fashion shows on TV (51 minutes compared to 45 minutes).
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E-tailer Notonthehighstreet said Friday that a more targeted approach to marketing started to pay off in the year to the end of March. The company managed to increase its active customers to 2.6 million and said that its performance improved in the second half with operating profits up.
While total sales came in just short of the previous year's £35.2 million, as the business focused on customers with greater long-term value, this resulted in revenue growth in the second half.
Operating profits (EBITDA) almost doubled, from £1.7 million to £3.1 milion, benefitting from that more targeted marketing strategy.
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ParkingPerx, an innovative new app which seeks to boost high street footfall through customer rewards, has secured more investment and announced new partnerships with brands including H&M and Adidas.
The startup, led by Chris Reed, has secured an £80,000 investment from his appearance on the BBC’s Dragons’ Den as well as £250,000 from Mercia Technologies to further develop the concept and create six new jobs over the next four months.
ParkingPerx has teamed up with a list of national chains and retailers including Adidas, Asda, H&M, John Lewis, Primark, Ted Baker and Nike. These collaborations will enable the free parking app to offer shopping discounts and rewards with major retailers across the UK.
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