News
Universum Global has launched the findings for the UK portion of its annual Global Talent Survey which found that Google is the UK’s most desirable company to work for by graduates for the seventh consecutive year.
Universum studied 39,500 students from 97 British Universities to understand the career aspirations, goals and workplace requirements for graduates.
Whilst Google continued to prove popular with those studying business and STEM, their applicant pool continues to widen with humanities and law students both ranking the organisation in their top two and four companies to work for respectively.
The UK’s Top Business and STEM Employers 2019 include Google, J.P Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Apple.
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The government has announced a partnership between NHS and Amazon, which will allow people to access healthcare information via their Alexa devices.
From this week, the voice-assisted technology is automatically searching the official NHS website when UK users ask for health-related advice, as opposed to searching through various popular answers.
The government in England said this partnership could reduce demand on the NHS. Privacy campaigners have raised data protection concerns but Amazon say all information will be kept confidential.
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15Five, which builds software and services to help organisations and their employees evaluate their performance, as well as set and meet goals, has closed a Series B round of $30.7 million, money that it plans to use to continue building out the functionality of its core product — self-evaluations that take “15 minutes to write, 5 minutes to read” — as well as expand into new services that will sit alongside that.
This Series B is being led by Next47, the strategic investment arm of manufacturing giant Siemens. Others in the round included Matrix Partners, PointNine Capital, Jason Calacanis’s LAUNCH Fund, Newground Ventures, Bling Capital, Chaifetz Group, and Origin Ventures (which had led 15Five’s Series A). It brings the total raised to $42.6 million.
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Blaize, a London-based SaaS customer experience platform for the subscription economy, raised £2.5M in seed funding.
The round was led by Nauta Capital. In conjunction with the funding, Carles Ferrer, Nauta Capital’s London-based General Partner, will be joining Blaize’s board.
The company intends to use the funds to further enhance its platform, strengthen its leadership and operational teams, and accelerate international expansion plans.
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A new report published by Oracle shows that on average, less than 40% of companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are confident they can master their data – that is to manage, secure and gain insight from data, and use it responsibly.
Key findings:
- On average 42% of respondents do not have a data management strategy in place
- Only 4 in 10 are highly confident in their ability to manage, secure data and use their data responsibly
- Only 35% are highly confident they can manage data to generate meaningful insights
- Key departments are still not accepting both accountability and responsibility for data management
- Data security protocols are often not understood, or abided by
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Mobile banking is set to overtake branch use in the next two years, as a boom in the fintech sector drives an increasing number of customers to digital formats.
Research by data consultancy CACI revealed 25m customers, or almost half the UK’s adult population, are currently banking on mobile formats. But this figure is set to rise further in the coming years, with mobile expected to surge past branches and desktop banking to become the most commonly-used banking channel for the majority of UK adults by 2021.
The findings highlight the growing popularity of digital banking, which has been pioneered by fintech challengers such as Monzo, Revolut and Starling.
Mobile savings accounts are set to become the latest battleground in the war between traditional banks and their younger rivals, according to the report, with more than 75% of new savings accounts expected to come from online channels by 2024.
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The chief executive of Starling Bank has lost her position as a major shareholder in the British fintech giant, following a large funding injection in February 2019.
Anne Boden, who founded Starling in 2014, ceased to be a person with significant control in the bank in April 2019, according to filings on Companies House.
A spokesperson for Starling told City A.M. the change was a result of the bank’s series C funding round in February, in which Boden had to dilute her shares in order to accommodate its two investors.
The fintech firm stands out from other tech companies, in that it has eschewed the typical venture capital route and until recently had relied solely on investment from Austrian billionaire Harald McPike.
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Boohoo has overtaken online fashion retail rival Asos in terms of overall stock market value.
Asos, which has been around for longer, has a market capitalisation of £2.16 billion. Its shares change hands for around 2,574p each. Boohoo shares are currently trading at a cheaper 212.4p each, but there are more of them and they all add up to a company valued at £2.47 billion.
Boohoo's acquisition strategy has been a big help. The company bought PrettyLittleThing (which has been seeing a phenomenally fast growth rate), as well as Nasty Gal and MissPap.
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Instagram, the photo sharing platform, has announced that it will be inserting ads into its Explore feed, the page which allows users to discover new content that could interest them.
The Facebook subsidiary, which is currently on the lookout for new sources of revenue, reassured its more than 1 billion users that the new ads will be introduced "slowly and thoughtfully in the coming months."
Acquired by Facebook in 2012, Instagram began to feature advertising in 2013. Video ads were introduced two years later.
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The Hut Group has acquired a 12,000 sq. ft. unit in a Grade II listed building in Manchester city centre to build a ‘World of THG’ where it can showcase its health and beauty brands.
The owner of online destinations like Lookfantastic.com and beauty brands including Espa, is increasingly amplifying its investment in premium retail space. Earlier this year, the company announced a £50 million purchase of the King Street Townhouse and Great John Street Hotel, and works are now underway to build a global content creation studio at Icon Manchester Airport.
One of the UK’s fastest-growing private companies, The Hut Group also plans to build a massive business campus in Manchester that will be home to up to 10,000 jobs to support its growth.
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