Startup News UK 2016 Review - January and February

by Startacus Admin

Startup News UK 2016 Review - January and February

2016 may be drawing to a close, but it has certainly been a year of drama, upsets and ‘post-truths’...and that’s just in the world of politics.

To help draw a line under 2016, and see how the political landscape has impacted on the UK Startup scene, Startacus has decided to review many of the key UK startup sector events, happenings, stories, and successes that have taken place throughout the year. You can read our review of  UK Startup News 2015 here.

This year to make the read a little more palatable, we’ve broken it down into six episodes from January & February, through to November & December; we will share a new review every few days or so until we are done. Of course for every story we have included, there are loads that didn’t make the cut, or we’ve simply missed. With this in mind, email editorial@startacus.net if you think your news, or someone else's Startup related news should be included, and we’ll take a gander. 

Oh, and to keep up to date with 2016 startup news, analysis, and discussions as they happen, sign up to our bi-monthly newsletter or become a Startacus member - it’s free you know! 

Now without further ado, let's review the key UK Startup scene in January and February 2016. 



January

• Not quite 2016- but 2015 ended with UK Digital Economy Minister Ed Vaizey petitioning industry and the public about how the government should approach a UK-wide digital strategy - you had until the 19th January to get your point across. 

• 2016 started with a number of the UK’s leading entrepreneurs being awarded titles in the Queen’s 2016 New Years Honours list. Notable startup names included co-founder of Wayra Europe Simon Devonshire, CEO of Ann Summers; Jacqueline Gold, and Rekha Mehr a previous Entrepreneur In Residence at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). 

• Also in January, a report compiled by IT recruiter Randstad said that 36% of UK tech workers and entrepreneurs share the personality traits of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whilst just 5% emulate the profile of Lord Sugar - highlighting perhaps a shift in what it means to be a successful entrepreneur.

• On 8th January 2016 Micro Biz Matters Day, a project which premiered in 2015, saw micro business owners from around the world dedicate 8 minutes of their time to helping each other out. Organised by well-respected UK entrepreneurs Tony Robinson and Tina Boden, the two have been vocal advocates of the micro business (MB) community for many years and in 2017 it will return on (lucky for you) Friday 13th January.

• It seems like we report this every year, but once again in January it was reported that the number of new UK startups increased 4.6% in 2015 from 2014.

• We found out that London Tech startups had bagged $2.3bn in venture capital investment in 2015 but it was also in the same month reported that Berlin was beckoning UK tech startups - and with BREXIT starting to appear on the news and political agenda - little did we know that this would become more relevant in the months that followed.

• Restaurant reservation start-up Bookatable was acquired by Michelin, Gambling & Gaming Innovation Won Big At WHLAbs, Paul Smith Stepped down As CEO Of U.K. Accelerator Ignite, Scottish tech travel giant Skyscanner raised $192 Million (more on Skyscanner later), London startup Carwow raised £12.5 million, Bristol cloud software startup Brightpearl raised £7.7 Million, Babylon, Digi Doctor App Babylon raised $25M, & Restaurant reservation start-up Bookatable was acquired by Michelin.

• Susi Wisniewski was awarded as the Startacus Self Starter of the year for 2015!

• Finally a (very small) YouGov EU referendum poll found that the leaders of big businesses and startups generally wanted to stay within the EU but only 47% of small business owners felt the same.
  
  

February

• February seemed to be all about statistics, with various reports, stats and indexes highlighting which UK Cities were the most entrepreneurial, or had the biggest number of Startups. Make of it what you will, but news reports varied from the North East and Wales being accredited as the the fastest growing UK regions for tech startups outside London, Edinburgh being the UK's second-largest hub for tech startups (outside of London), to Liverpool being hailed as a city of entrepreneurs with start-up rate of 16%. In fact if you read closely enough it was clear that all UK regions could make a case for some startup claim to fame.

• Speaking of championing entrepreneurship, the Maserati 100 returned with the announcement of the 2016 winners. Our very own Startacus Co-Founder Alastair Cameron was recognised in the inaugural 2015 Maserati100 list, so we were delighted the awards returned for a second year to award 100 of the UK’s most successful philanthropists, investors, mentors and advisors, and ascending entrepreneurs who support the next generation of founders.

• New Manchester based startup Festival Business Rocks called for applications for its April Pitch Competition Innov8.

• TechHub Swansea opened a new accelerator

• EY launched a fintech secondment programme that was for startups 

• In February it was reported that over 5000 UK recruitment start-ups launched in 2015.

• In investment / buyout news Microsoft bought SwiftKey - Britain's 'stealthiest software startup' and another $45m was invested in UK money transfer service WorldRemit.

• UK Startups started to generally got a little jittery about the impact BREXIT would have, should we vote to leave - this article on Tech City News via Husayn Kussai, CEO and co-founder of UK startup Onfido pitched a disaster scenario for the UK Tech scene.

We hope that has given you a flavour of some of key UK Startup happenings for January and February 2016. 

Now read...

• March and April 2016 UK Startup News Overview

• May and June 2016 UK Startup roundup 

 

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Published on: 5th December 2016