Author: Patrick Killeen

Sayak Ghosh is now on stage pitching his AI SportTech Step Out.

The Indian-based company already has an array of huge clients in the sporting world and operates in 22 countries.

Its been growing 5x year-on-year and 80% of its business is international.

Jaap Stam and Paulo Futre are advisors for the company which is enhancing analysis with the use of AI.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Jorge Monteiro is pitching his startup Ethiack in his home country.

The cybersecurity firm uses a platform combining AI agents and human ethical hackers to provide continuous security testing for businesses.

It performs autonomous ethical hacking to identify and manage vulnerabilities, acting as a proactive defense against cyberattacks.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Finnish startup Flow Computing is developing a parallel processing unit (PPU) architecture designed to boost CPU performance for tasks such as AI, data centers, and autonomous vehicles.

The company says its technology can make processors up to 100 times faster without major software changes, helping existing and new applications run more efficiently.

Timo Valtonen, co-founder and CEO, is live on Stage 6 now.

He says the industry will be an estimated €150 billion by 2035.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Kristi Lember, global business developer, is pitching for ÄIO.

The company uses precision fermentation to create sustainable oils and fats from agricultural and wood industry byproducts like sawdust.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Colombia’s Valentina Agudelo Vargas is pitching for the company that she co-founded with two friends.

Together, they have developed a portable breast cancer detection service – Julieta.

The company model means that it can charge as low as $5 for a screening.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Luis Fernando Magalhães is next to take the stage. He’s the co-founder of Brazil-based CleanTech O2eco.

It’s looking to disrupt the $600 billion global water and wastewater treatment market.

“We can help countries and companies to keep their water promises,” he says.

The company is developing natural bio-stimulation technology to help clean and restore rivers, lakes, and reservoirs.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Jürgen Mayerhofer, CEO and co-founder of Vienna-based inspired, is the first entrepreneur to take to the stage.

The company is Europe’s largest battery optimiser.

Author: Patrick Killeen

I’m here covering the KPMG Global Tech Innovator Final on Stage 6.

It’s the most full I’ve seen any stage so far this week!

20 national winners from around the world are competing for the chance to be crowned global champion.

Last year Japanese finalist Rudder Wu, CTO of Thermalytica, claimed the top prize.

SSE – +13.3%
Avon Technologies – +7.53%
Smithson Investment Trust – +6.68%
Games Workshop – +5.2%
Burberry – +5.1%

Media and tech companies whose share price has risen today include Kainos (+3.68%), ITV (+2.22%), THG (+2.18%) and Oxford Biomedica (+1.95%).

Baltic Classifieds – -5.10%
Taylor Wimpey – -3.50%
3I Group – -3.4%
Tesco – -2.77%
Plus500 – -2.5%

Tech companies to experience falls today include Experian (-2.21%), AutoTrader (-2.17%), Oxford Nanopore (-1.5%) and  Rightmove (-1.46%).

Rex Software, a provider of estate agency technology solutions, has announced a strategic rebrand to align its growing portfolio of products under a single, unified identity.

This move follows the acquisitions of Cirrus8, a leading commercial property management platform, and RealTrust, a provider of outsourced property management assistance and trust accounting, earlier in the year.

Operating under the banner of ‘Rex’, the unified products are now commercial property management system RexCirrus8; sales and letting customer relationship management RexCRM; social media marketing platform RexReach; outsourced property management assistance and trust accounting RexRealTrust; residential property management system RexPM; and website builder RexSites.

Gumtree, one of the UK’s most popular online marketplaces, has announced Evri as its first official delivery partner to support the platform’s evolution into a fully transactional marketplace.

With 10 million monthly visitors and nearly 2 million active listings, this move marks the first time Gumtree will allow buyers to pay for items directly on the site. Secure delivery, starting with selected product categories including fashion, accessories and baby & children, will roll out ahead of a wider launch planned for 2026.

The multi-year partnership with Evri is integral to enabling secure, nationwide shipping across the UK. Evri was selected for its experience, expertise and innovation in logistics.

FALKIN, a digital safety company that helps people stop scams before payments happen, has secured £1.5m in pre-seed funding.

The round was led by TriplePoint Ventures, with participation from Notion Capital, BackFuture Ventures, Aviva/Founders Factory, Haatch, Found Capital and Founders Capital.

The round also included leading FinTech and cyber investors such as Pierre Decote, group chief risk officer at Revolut and Ben Enckevort, CTO and co-founder of Metomic.

Barclays has joined as a cornerstone investor in Salica Investments’ £150m Growth Debt Fund II.

Following the fund’s first close, which also included backing from the British Business Bank and West Yorkshire Pension Fund, the firms say the collaboration marks an important milestone in Salica’s mission to provide flexible, growth-stage debt financing to high potential scaling companies across the UK.

Finastra, a provider of financial services software, has appointed three senior technology executives to its leadership team.

Ali Khan has been appointed chief data officer. The Experian executive has more than 25 years of experience across data, AI, and platform architecture.

Matthew McCormack, the new chief information security officer, joins Finastra from BNY.

Sanjay Jain, appointed chief information officer, previously worked at Honeywell.

Napier AI, a London-based financial crime compliance RegTech, has appointed seasoned professional Stacy Lowe as chief people officer to lead the company’s hiring and retention strategy.

Lowe will be tasked with hiring key financial crime and anti-money laundering talent into Napier AI, the upskilling of staff to support career progression and growth, and managing the organisation’s global workforce, spanning the UK, Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific.

Lowe joins with experience in HR and people leadership, following the acquisition by Marlin Equity Partners (Marlin), and will also support Napier AI’s global expansion strategy.

Most recently, Lowe served as the Director of HR Practice at Private Equity firm Aurelius and has previously held roles at Citeline; a Norstella company, Taylor & Francis and Informa Business Intelligence both Informa Plc divisions.

Bloxx, a FinTech founded by former banking executive Chris Smith – a native of Yorkshire – and Hollywood actor/producer Cliff Curtis, has launched its home equity subscription platform globally.

The platform introduces a revolutionary new route to homeownership, allowing individuals to build equity from day one without taking a mortgage.

It was piloted in New Zealand.

Children will be better protected from becoming victims of horrific indecent deepfakes as new laws aim to ensure AI cannot be exploited to generate child sexual abuse material.

Data from the Internet Watch Foundation released today shows reports of AI-generated child sexual abuse material have more than doubled in the past year, rising from 199 in 2024 to 426 in 2025.

There has also been a disturbing rise in depictions of infants, with images of 0–2-year-olds surging from 5 in 2024 to 92 in 2025.

Under stringent new legislation, designated bodies like AI developers and child protection organisations, such as the IWF, will be empowered to scrutinise AI models and ensure safeguards are in place to prevent them generating or proliferating child sexual abuse material.

Currently, criminal liability to create and possess this material means developers can’t carry out safety testing on AI models, and images can only be removed after they have been created and shared online. This measure, said to be one of the first of its kind in the world, ensures AI systems’ safeguards can be robustly tested from the start, to limit its production in the first place.

The laws will also enable organisations to check models have protections against extreme pornography, and non-consensual intimate images.

Menstrual health startup Joii is launching the world’s first AI-powered app that measures period blood volume in the UK.

Joii’s innovation, which is registered as a Class I medical device in the UK, is bringing data to an area of women’s health that has long been ignored and minimised.

Using AI technology paired with Joii’s specially designed pads, Joii’s Period Evaluation app instantly measures blood volume and clot size with clinical precision. Users simply scan their pad with their phone.

Using the app to measure period volume provides users with objective data rather than relying on subjective terms like ‘heavy’, ‘light’ or ‘normal’ flow or counting how many pads or tampons they use, the startup says.

The app also provides cycle tracking and predictions, doctor visit notes so users can remember what to ask at appointments, educational content and personalised health insights and reports.

Hospitals, energy and water supplies and transport networks could be better protected from the threat of cyber-attacks under new laws being introduced in Parliament today.

The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will regulate medium and large companies providing services like IT management, IT help desk support and cybersecurity to private and public sector organisations such as the NHS.

“Because they hold trusted access across government, critical national infrastructure and business networks, they will need to meet clear security duties. This includes reporting significant or potentially significant cyber incidents promptly to government and their customers as well as having robust plans in place to deal with the consequences,” said the government.

Regulators will also be given new powers to designate critical suppliers to the UK’s essential services such as those providing healthcare diagnostics to the NHS or chemicals to a water firm: this would mean they’d have to meet minimum security requirements – shutting down gaps in supply chains criminals could exploit which could cause wider disruption.

Tougher turnover-based penalties for serious breaches will also be introduced, while the Technology Secretary gets new powers to instruct regulators and the organisations they oversee to take specific, proportionate steps to prevent cyber attacks where there is a threat to UK national security.

Credit reporting and data company Experian has reported strong growth in the six months ended 30th September 2025.

Revenues for the period topped $4bn, up from $3.6bn in the corresponding period last year – signalling growth of 12% at the FTSE 100 firm.

Profit before tax was $975m, up from $718m – a rise of 36%.