London-listed Draper Esprit to double down on European tech with £100m share placing January 21, 2019 Venture capital firm Draper Esprit has today announced it will acquire a larger stake in funds managed by its European counterpart Earlybird, with the intention of raising £100m through a fresh share placing to finance the move. The London-listed tech investor first partnered with Earlybird in July last year, committing up to £76m into the German firm's [...]
29 reasons not to invest in the stock market January 21, 2019 | City Talk Wars, disasters, economic strife and political instability have been persistent themes over the last three decades and they can affect people’s attitude towards investing. In many cases they make an already tough decision to part with your money and invest even harder, leading some to not invest at all. Behavioural scientists have a name for [...]
Monica Vinader-backer Beringea leads £6.5m round for data startup Exonar January 21, 2019 London-based venture capital firm Beringea has led a £6.5m funding round into UK data privacy and cybersecurity startup Exonar. The round was completed by Beringea alongside Downing Ventures, and existing investors Amadeus Capital Partners and Winton Ventures. Exonar aims to help firms comply with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation and other legislation by creating an overview [...]
London fintech Marketinvoice lands £56m in funding from Barclays and Santander January 21, 2019 London-based fintech business lender Marketinvoice has today closed a £56m round made up of equity and debt funding, led by Barclays and Santander's venture arm Innoventures. The series B-stage equity funding, which amounted to £26m, also received significant participation from European venture capital firm Northzone, which has previously backed the likes of Spotify, Trustpilot and fellow fintech lender Zopa. [...]
Former SSE boss Ian Marchant invests in London smart home startup January 21, 2019 A London-based smart home technology startup, backed by the former chief of SSE Ian Marchant, today announced that it has raised £2m in a new funding round. Den, which has now raised a total of £5m, is also backed by Mark Davies, a founder of Betfair. Read more: Stay on top of your resolutions with the [...]
Hacking Wall Street: Are tech unicorns about to disrupt stock market flotations? January 21, 2019 Tech companies have changed the way we chat, bank, travel and date. Are they about to disrupt capital markets too? “In [Silicon] Valley there’s always been that mentality: how do we hack Wall Street?” says Rob Kniaz, a founder of tech-focused venture capital firm Hoxton Ventures. Two weeks ago reports broke that Slack, the workplace [...]
Profit warnings by UK retailers at the highest level since Global Financial Crisis January 20, 2019 The number of UK retailers issuing profit warnings reached a ten year high last year as the sector endured a torrid twelve months, according to data from accounting giant EY. Data showed that 38 per cent of FTSE general retailers issued profit warnings in 2018, a 50 per cent increase on the previous year and [...]
FTSE risers and fallers: US-China breakthrough gives markets a pre-weekend boost January 18, 2019 The FTSE soared upwards today as China signalled it would be willing to break the impasse in relations with the US. The markets reacted well to reports that the country was offering to go on a six-year buying spree to ramp up US imports to over $1tn a year. Officials made the offer, which would [...]
Rio Tinto rises as iron output grows two per cent in line with expectations January 18, 2019 Rio Tinto showed its metal this morning as iron shipments increased two per cent in line with the company’s 2018 guidance. Shares in the FTSE 100 miner had risen around one per cent by the early afternoon to 2,937p as the company reported that copper output had rocketed 33 per cent, ahead of expectations. However forecasts [...]
China could turn to Indonesian imports as coal mines shut after accident which left 21 dead January 18, 2019 A collapsed coal mine which left 21 dead in China’s Shaanxi province could force the country to ramp up coal imports as production is shut down in two counties. Coal mining has been halted for at least a month in all private mines in Shenmu county where the roof collapsed at the 0.9m tonnes per [...]