News
The Investment Association has developed a 'fintech accelerator' named VeloCity to boost technological innovation within asset management.
VeloCity, which will launch in the second quarter of 2018, will welcome between four to eight fintech firms, twice a year, and assist them with turning their technology into business-ready solutions with the aim of increasing innovation.
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There is potentially bad news for traditional thing-producers as we see a massive value-shift from thing-value to data and service value. What’s interesting about data is it can be abstracted, manipulated, analysed and enhanced in a way that things can’t. And the results of all that activity can ultimately tell the first thing or a bigger group of things what to do to produce a desired outcome.
It is good news for all the innovative big data, AI, VR and sensor companies out there that are identifying innovative new ways to interpret data streams and collapse historical business models. Industries are going to be atomised and rebuilt as digital-first outcome-centric services.
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The think tank Reform has created a report that urges the NHS to consider using AI to boost its digital transformation efforts.
Amongst the 16 recommendations that Reform makes to the NHS are ideas such as increasing the quality of the data they collect so it can be better used by AI and that IT companies in charge of AI for the NHS should be responsible if systems fail.
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Re:infer, a London-based artificial intelligence startup delivering cognitive automation, has raised £2.5m in a round led by Touchstone Innovations. The spinout from UCL’s AI lab also drew support from Crane Ventures alongside existing backers Seedcamp and Dr Jason Kingdon, an AI pioneer.
Re:infer’s deep learning tech automates the interpretation of communications data and bridges the gap between humans and information technology systems.
The company will use the money to further develop its cognitive automation product suite and hire across sales and marketing.
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A report produced by Innovate Finance, in collaboration with PitchBook, found that the UK had its best year on record for VC investment into FinTech in 2017 and was a global leader in terms of capital invested and deal volume, second only to the US.
In 2017 in the UK there was $1.8bn of capital invested over 224 deals, a 153% increase Year-over-Year. The report believes this was due to a variety of factors including the fact that the FinTech industry is maturing and that it has a stronger talent base as well as the increased availability of capital.
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French cosmetics company L’Oréal has partnered up with designer Yves Béhar to create a wearable UV sensor that tracks sun exposure.
The UV sensor is two millimetres thick and nine millimetres in diameter and is meant to be worn on the user's thumbnail, which should allow for the most accurate sunlight exposure reading. The information the UV sensor collects is transmitted to an app via Near Field Communication (NFC) – a wireless technology that works using magnetic field induction. The user can then track their sun exposure and receive warnings for when they need to seek shade.
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Monzo, a digital mobile-only bank based in the UK, has raised more than £100m from investors including Passion Capital, Goodwater Capital and Thrive Capital, and says Ireland is the first step in its plans for international expansion.
As well as Ireland, Monzo will look to move into other European countries throughout 2018. The firm is also eyeing a potential expansion into the United States.
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Vivino, the world's most downloaded mobile wine app and largest online wine marketplace, has managed to raise $20m in a round led by SCP Neptune International, who join existing investors Balderton, Creandum, SEED Capital and Iconical.
Over the past two years Vivino has seen its user base grow from 13 million to 29 million and it now provides information on over 9 million wines from 3,157 wine regions and 204,154 wineries.
Vivino will be using the Series C financing to further develop their technology and to fuel growth, with plans to expand to new markets such as Hong Kong. The team is targeting $1 billion in wine sales by 2020.
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Twine Health, a service built for helping people who suffer from chronic conditions including hypertension and diabetes, is being acquired by Fitbit. Although Twine Health's customer base was focused within the workforce, Fitbit are hoping to roll it out to all their customers.
With this acquisition, as well as their long term plans, Fitbit are aiming to help build better relationships between patients and their doctors.
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Foresight, a leading independent infrastructure and private equity investment manager, has invested $6.1m of growth capital into PowerLinks, a software platform which automates the buying and selling of personally relevant and user-friendly “native” advertising.
The capital injection is intended to accelerate PowerLinks’ expansion in the US, with planned additions across the sales, client services and technology teams. The company will also partner with global customers to roll out support in dozens of new markets, having recently expanded in Amsterdam and Berlin.
As part of Foresight’s investment, PowerLinks has boosted its management team with the appointment of Alex Rahaman as Chairman and Mickey Christodoulides as Finance Director.
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