Articles about Startup

Chrome has not been put up for sale, but that has not stopped AI startup Perplexity from putting in a bid to buy the web browser from Google.

While on the face of things the $34.5 billion bid seems large, it has been widely dismissed as being a fraction of Chrome’s real value. So, what is the deal with Perplexity trying to snap up the most popular web browser in the world?

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Conflict, like everything else these days, is now shaped by technology. The old model -- industrial-scale production, multi-decade procurement cycles, and the primacy of sheer manpower -- is fading. In its place something faster, leaner and more precise is emerging. Small teams with energy, ambition and good ideas now do in months what legacy contractors once did in years. In Ukraine, for example, drones built by startups and programmed by engineers barely out of university, are destroying tanks worth millions of dollars. The battlefield is changing. And with it, so is the balance of power.

A modern conflict, then, is not won by the biggest army. It’s won by those who can see first, move first, and strike first. This is the reality that some countries in some regions have been slow to grasp. I am a German citizen with friends in the force who have witnessed this first-hand. Their systems are bureaucratic, their procurement cycles sluggish. In a world where technology evolves in real time, they cannot keep pace. And after decades of peace, they haven’t felt motivated to do so.

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Data is crucial in today's tech-driven world, with enterprises prioritizing its use in all aspects of their operations. A recent survey shows that 83 percent of CEOs want their organizations to be data-driven.  However, the same survey found that only 25 percent of organizations are data-leading companies. This presents a significant opportunity for start-ups to establish themselves at the forefront of the data economy. 

The early days of the data economy relied on users handing over their data to access digital services, and companies then monetize that data through advertising. There is now a transition underway where businesses are seeking to improve and broaden how they create, manage, analyze, and extract value from their data. This expansion will expand the data economy's definition and market potential, creating an opportunity for start-ups to create hardware and software that will enable this new era.

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Everybody has their two cents, and it’s easy to get lost in all the business advice and recommendations that are out there. While there are a ton of "musts", the insight about what not to do is of equal value. Being prepared for every scenario will not only save you a lot of time and resources but also make you better prepared for any kind of hardship along the way. 

As 20 percent of new businesses fail during the first two years of operation, and roughly half of all companies don't survive the first five years -- what will reverse these unfortunate statistics? Here are my do’s and don’ts of running an independent business of any size.

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It’s not long now until Microsoft takes the wraps off the next version of Windows, and there’s a lot of debate going on already with regards to what it might be called. The smart money is on Windows 11, but Windows Sun Valley is also a popular choice.

If you’re excited for the grand reveal, Microsoft has come up with a way to keep you calm while you wait -- and that’s to listen to startup sounds from previous versions of Windows, slowed down by 4000 percent!

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There’s no doubt that 2020 has been a testing year for everyone. According to data from PwC, 53 percent of CFOs expect a decrease in revenue and/or profits of up to 25 percent as a direct result of COVID-19. For many tech startups, that’s the difference between staying alive and closing for good.

With such uncertainty in the air, leadership teams have had to act fast and rethink their entire strategy.

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About seven years ago, as the COO of a financial services firm, I got pissed off. My company had a very simple service level agreement (SLA) with its clients: we would complete all of their financial transactions within three seconds. Period. And to ramp up our operations, we decided to move our infrastructure from on-site physical servers into the cloud.

But once we were on the cloud, we found that we were actually getting poorer transaction times -- way beyond our three-second SLA. We were not sure why, so we used a stack of off-the-shelf software to monitor the cloud’s operation. And when that didn’t give us the visibility we needed; we tried more applications. Even the cloud’s operators pitched in with their own professional service people. But again, no luck, no visibility, and worse, we started seeing a falloff in our business. Beyond that, we were spending twice as much on monitoring as we did on the cloud hosting itself. But to no avail, it didn’t offer us any help in troubleshooting our issue.

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Yes, I’m still predicting-away, though the pandemic is having some impact on the direction in which this narrative is going. Today’s column on startups and venture capital, for example, wasn’t even on my original list of predictions. Just as the financial markets will use this catastrophe for a reset, so, too, will Sand Hill Road, which has pretty much stopped investing and is now deciding, instead, who to kill?

The psychology of venture capital doesn’t work the way most people think. That’s because it is an industry based on failure: most startups -- the vast majority -- fail. That means most VC investment decisions are wrong. There is simply no way of getting around this fact. You can’t call yourself a VC if you don’t make investment decisions and you can’t make investment decisions without being wrong most of the time. So succeeding as a VC is not just a matter of finding good companies, but also avoiding bad companies and managing your portfolio for the greatest possible perceived total value.

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Financial disruptor Revolut has managed to raise $500 million in a Series D funding round. The new funding sees the value of the digital banking platform rocketing to $5.5 billion, making it the UK's most valuable fintech startup, and one of the most valuable fintech firms in Europe.

The funding comes from a group of investors headed up by TCV (Technology Crossover Ventures) and effectively triples the value of Revolut when compared to its funding round in 2018. The cash injection will be used to expand its multi-currency operations both in Europe and on a global scale.

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So far this century, one tech startup after another has reshaped the way that we live. Facebook transformed social interaction. Uber changed how we get around. Tinder changed how we date. While these companies have been highly forward-thinking, they have also persistently struggled to solve crucial challenges regarding background checks and user safety.

2019 brought many of these issues into the limelight. Here are four of the most surprising things we learned about startups and sexual offenses in 2019.

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A new survey of 100 business leaders in early stage, UK-based technology companies finds that 73 percent are confident or very confident they will increase their turnover in the coming 12 months.

Although this is seven percent down on the previous quarter, 79 percent say they intend to hire more staff (up six percent) and 66 percent hope to raise investment (up seven percent) according to the latest Tech Tracker report from Studio Graphene.

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Now that technology is at the core of all business activities, IT finds itself evolving from having a supporting role to having a more central and crucial one. Even for startups, it's important to effectively define IT's place in the organization given the new realities created by the changing landscapes of technology and commerce.

Consider how dramatically this role has changed. Just over a decade ago, IT leaders were concerned with improving connectivity within the workplace and bringing their organizations online. More recently, they’ve had to worry about things like mobile tunneling, GDPR compliance and optimizing real-time business intelligence dashboards.

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Modern startups are awash in information, from real-time customer insights collected via mobile applications to employee data received through online portals.

Founders are constantly making decisions about where to invest, when to hire, how to hire and, most importantly, how to grow. In the rush to cultivate clients and consider business scalability, many startups may fail to truly appreciate the immense responsibility that comes with gathering and storing data in the current digital environment, a place where cybercriminals roam and users are painfully aware of the risks that come with sharing private information online.

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Ken Seddon is the CEO of the non-profit patent protection network LOT. The organization’s members include Google, Red Hat, Lenovo, Pega and other big players, as well as dozens of startups in areas such as transportation, blockchain, and software.

Startups are disproportionately impacted by patent trolls and we chatted with Ken about how a smart, assertive IP strategy can help protect their businesses.

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Despite growing concerns over the impact that Brexit might have on fintech startups in the UK, new figures have revealed that the sector has seen record investment throughout the year so far.

According to data from London and Partners and Pitchbook, over $1 billion has already been invested in UK fintech by venture capitalists which is more than double that of the same last year.

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