Startup News UK 2016 review May and June

by Startacus Admin

A week or so ago we started our 2016 UK Startup Review by focusing on many of the key UK startup happenings and news stories from January and February and March and April.

Now with a third of 2016 done and dusted, we continue our review of UK Startup News for 2016 with many of the key happenings from May and June.

With the BREXIT vote looming at the end of June, we’ve also made sure to include a good bit of the tech related news and fallout from the BREXIT vote. But first May…

May

• With the BREXIT vote only a month away Allister Heath of the Telegraph proposed that “Start-up Britain will thrive out of the EU”

• Polling nearly 57% of the vote, Sadiq Khan became the London mayor at the start of May and promised to become the "most pro-business yet" London Major.

• London is second best city for tech investment (of course) just behind Silicon Valley, an EY survey says. Disappointingly Northern Ireland and the South East saw a drop in investments of 62% and 22% respectively, year on year 2015 to 2014.

• In more encouraging NI Startup news - NI Accelerator, StartPlanetNI invited both local and International startups to Belfast for their second programme and Belfast based Cycle gadget Startup See.Sense were crowned the winners of the BT Infinity Lab smart cities competition.

• TransferWise raised 18m, Music tech startup Roli bagged $27m, and Startup app-only bank Tandem cashed-in over £1 million in around 15 minutes via its crowdfunding campaign.

• Capital One Announced their UK Fintech Startup Accelerator "Growth Labs" in partnership with corporate innovation specialists L Marks

• Asos and Telefonica's Wayra launched a fashion tech accelerator.

• The annual Varsity Pitch Competition from the fab National Association of College and University Entrepreneurs (NACUE) launched again.

• Startup Van set up camp in Old Street Station in London for a full 5 days to film Startups.

June

• Big changes ahead! (Not just BREXIT!). At the start of June we reported that on the 30th June the good old Annual Return was having a face-lift and would reemerge as the Confirmation Statement.

• It was also a big month for Startacus as after months of preparation collaborating with Digital DNA, tech / digital startups were welcomed to Belfast, for Startup pitch battle ‘upSTART Belfast’ which took place during this year’s Digital DNA event. Watch the short video below that gives a flavour of all the key happenings at the inaugural pitch battle where FashTech Startup Modlist were crowned the winners.
  
  

  Startup Pitch Event Startacus

  
  

• Talking events - London Technology Week 2016 returned and the StartUp Britain Bus revved up its engines for its annual UK bus tour.

• Think tank IPPR North said that the government’s plans to create a Northern Powerhouse needed a “proper business-lead plan” that went beyond just reducing travel times.

• Staying in the North - Cisco announced that a new incubator with a focus on smart cities, the Internet of Things, and healthcare would be based in Manchester, Manchester retailer N Brown Group looked to collaborate with startups on a new Corporate Programme and Scottish SaaS startup Spoonfed raises £585000.

• A report compiled by Startup Europe Partnership and Nesta ranked the top corporate startup collaborators. The list of Corporates was 25 strong, with the top 5 listed as Cisco, Rabobank, Unilever, Telefonica and the Virgin Group. Corporate and Startup programmes and collaboration evidently becoming more of a focus throughout 2016.

• The Queen handed out more gongs to entrepreneurs in her birthday honors list.

• Richard Branson awarded the winning startups of VOOM 2016

• Deloitte invested £2.5m in a startups launchpad.

• Lystable, bagged $11m in series A funding, Twitter paid $150m for AI startup Magic Pony,  HR startup hibob raised $7.5 million in a seed round, and Loot raised £1.5 million to build a bank for 'Generation Snapchat'.

• A new Birmingham based Accelerator The Climate-KIC Low Carbon Accelerator looked for UK startups that had a product, service, or innovation to tackle climate change.

BREXIT in June

• With a couple of weeks to go before the vote, 60 leading Investors wrote  a letter in the press with the key headline being that Brexit was a danger to UK startups.

• With ‘the biggest political decision in our lifetimes' 1 day away, the team at Startacus highlighted 6 of the best tech community BREXIT discussions which we had read via the UK tech community / media over the previous few weeks/months.  

• Tech community media coverage that had preceded the BREXIT vote generally sat on the side of remain. From headlines that Brexit could have a devastating effect on the UK tech industry, to ‘For democracy’s sake, UK tech staff need to vote in the EU referendum’ the Tech community were openly concerned about what impact Brexit will have on UK startups and innovation.

• Post the BREXIT vote on the 23rd June there was of course both delight and dismay expressed at the ‘leave’ win. Questions were quickly asked about how much of an impact the ‘leave’ vote would have on the Startup community and innovation more generally in the UK.

• The UK Business Secretary Sajid Javid quickly sort to reassure firms amid 'Brexit' fallout, with fears that after Brexit, the race was immediately on to replace London as Europe's startup capital.

• In the days following the vote, Berlin was championed as favourites to replace London as the European Startup Capital and it was also reported that Berlin was in fact already eyeing up Britain's tech talent and also that some British Tech firms were looking at relocation as an option.

• More generally, the question was beginning to be asked about what the 'Brexit' vote would mean for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and in a sign of Donald Trump's growing political stature we found out that Donald Trump had hailed UK's 'Brexit' Vote (whilst he was over in Scotland - where they voted to remain!)....
  
  

Hopefully that has given you a flavour of some of key UK Startup happenings and events for May and June 2016. Keep an eye out via Startacus itself, our Twitter handle, or via our Facebook page where all Startacus articles are shared.

Also why not read:

Startup News UK 2016 Review - January and February

Startup News UK 2016 Review - March and April

UK Startup News 2016 Review - July and August

Startup News Review UK 2016 - October and September 

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Published on: 19th December 2016