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%.

Author: Chris Maguire

Serial entrepreneur Grace Beverley took to the Web Summit stage yesterday – twice in one hour.

Her business portfolio includes  SHREDDY, TALA, The Productivity Method and the  AI-powered talent agent Retrograde.

The companies employ around 100 people and are reported to have a collective value of £70m.

She’s also the host of the chart-topping podcast ‘Working Hard with Grace Beverley’ and the author of the bestselling book ‘Working Hard, Hardly Working’.

Beverley has around 3m social media followers – including 1.1m on Instagram – and has raised in excess of $14m in investment.

Chris Maguire has profiled the 28-year-old after watching both her appearances at Europe’s biggest tech event.

Founded by former care worker Tsitsi Mtasa, Manchester-based Wisterias has developed a digital care management platform designed specifically for smaller providers, combining scheduling, compliance, invoicing and care planning in one intuitive system.

With £87,000 in funding and tailored support from Greater Manchester’s innovation ecosystem, the start-up has gone from concept to market-ready product in under two years – already creating two new jobs and forecasting turnover growth from £58,000 to £1 million by 2028.

Built from the ground up by people who’ve worked in the industry, the cloud-based platform aims to provide an affordable way for care workers to access real-time updates even in low-connectivity environments. It offers a number of cutting-edge features, such as automated compliance tracking and offline functionality, to streamline workflows and reduce paperwork.

I don’t remember too much from my last year at school, but it definitely didn’t involve being a speaker at a global scale event filled with entrepreneurs and investors.

It also, unfortunately, didn’t involve starting a successful business in the world of technology.

Heman Bekele (15), Raya Mardani (16) and Aarav Sharma (15) all just spoke on a panel chaired by podcaster David Savage about their startups – and it was genuinely mindblowing to see not only how well they’re doing, but how well they carry themselves.

Bekele has invented a skin cancer-treating soap, Mardani a FemTech to make periods safer, and Sharma a brain-controlled exoskeleton arm to make assistive technology more accessible.

Very tough to put in to words how impressive these teenagers are – watch out.

St John’s in Manchester is fast cementing its reputation as a growing media industry hub in the city after announcing McCann as its latest signing.

Department’s Bonded Warehouse is already home to leading global agencies, including Dentsu, Weber Shandwick and Grayling.

This month, Department will welcome its latest high profile signing – globally renowned advertising agency, McCann.

Open Partners, one of the UK’s biggest and fastest-growing fully independent agencies, is now in its fourth year at Bonded Warehouse.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Live from Lisbon, Manchester City CTO Greg Swimer and VTEX chief revenue officer Santiago Naranjo discussed how technology is transforming the fan experience through their new global partnership.

Swimer said the collaboration, announced eight months ago, reflects shared values of innovation, collaboration and expertise, as City expands its digital and physical footprint with new developments around the Etihad.

Among these are the recently announced virtual stadium tour, which gives fans first-hand experience of stepping out onto the pitch.

Naranjo praised the club’s – and Swimer’s- “commitment to putting fans at the centre,” and explained how VTEX’s platform will help to create personalised online journeys for supporters worldwide.

4Imprint – +17.18%
Oxford Instruments – +12.72%
Vodafone – +5.38%
Watches of Switzerland – +5.28%
WPP – +4.39%

Other big risers from the tech space are Kainos (+3.22%), Trainline (+2.13%), BT Group (+1.72%), Sage (+1.50%) and Rightmove (+1.49%).

Hilton Food Group – -22.31%
Ceres Power – -4.08%
Tesco – -3.28%
Marks & Spencer – -3.05%
Ashmore Group – -2.87%

Tech firms which have also dropped today are Auto Trader (-2.42%), BAE Systems (-1.15%), Pinewood Technologies (-1.13%) and Plus500 (-1%).

MediaCity Immersive Technologies Innovation Hub (MITIH) has partnered with Grow with Google to deliver a free new workshop series helping Greater Manchester’s entrepreneurs unlock the practical potential of AI for business growth.

Based at HOST, the Home for Skills & Technology in MediaCity – and open to all – attendees can choose to take part in any of the interactive workshops, including Making Sense of AI, Practical AI for Business, Social Media Masterclass, AI Prompting Essentials, and Leadership for the Digital Age.

Delivered by MITIH as part of its Spark Salford accelerator programme, it brings together entrepreneurs, small business owners, and creative professionals for hands-on learning. Participants will gain actionable insights into using AI tools to streamline operations, boost productivity, and strengthen digital strategies.