Allica Bank, the leading fintech SME challenger bank, announces a £110m Series B funding round led by Atalaya Capital Management*, alongside existing lead investor Warwick Capital Partners. Allica is the only fintech challenger bank in the UK dedicated to providing a full range of credit and payment services to established, growing SMEs – combining proprietary technology and experienced local relationship managers to provide great customer experience. Since first opening its doors to SME lending in March 2020, the bank has built strong momentum in its existing lending, with more than £0.5bn in committed loan offers provided to customers in the…
Author: sme-admin
Surging energy prices and supply chain delays are threatening the economic recovery whilst causing significant issues for businesses still struggling with the aftermath of COVID-19 restrictions. On top of this, SMEs must navigate local bottlenecks – such as UK border delays, transport, and petrol shortages – causing further stress. Worries about stagflation and the looming rise of interest rates are undoubtedly causing angst for SMEs across Europe, too. A steady decline in business output and the impact of the supply chain crisis means the perfect cash flow storm is brewing for this vital community. Mikkel Velin, co-CEO at YouLend provides SMEToday’s readers with some…
Online shopping during last year’s Black Friday surged by around 22% in a record-breaking haul for eCommerce. But whilst consumers are making the most of peak season discounts, the Black Friday period is now one of the most lucrative times of the year for hackers, who are looking to take advantage of the influx in transactions and financial information shared online. Increased mobile commerce, higher spending and elongated shopping hours creates the perfect environment for the cyber vulnerability that attackers are waiting to take advantage of. Cyber criminals today are becoming smarter and more cunning, and are looking to capitalise on the…
Pete Evans, Practice Partner of SalesStar UK discusses why the second digital revolution currently taking place in the sales industry, means sales teams and people are under pressure to adopt and adapt to new technologies – perhaps without fully understanding how to utilise these technologies, nor how best to benefit from them. Particularly for SMEs, these technologies are generally sold with the promise of an increase in sales success, but without the know-how can this promise be fulfilled? This begs the question; do sales teams really need to embrace technology for success? Sales Technology Cannot Be Ignored There isn’t a…
The Insolvency Service recently announced that it had penalised the directors at three companies for exploiting a government loan handed out to them during the pandemic. A total of almost £100,000 of Bounce Back Loans had been wrongly applied for or misused: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/insolvency-service-cracks-down-on-bounce-back-loan-abusers John Bell is director and founder of licensed Insolvency Practitioners Clarke Bell and here he explains the purpose of the Bounce Back Loan Scheme and what business owners can do if they cannot repay the loan. What is the Bounce Back Loan Scheme? The Bounce Back Loan Scheme was designed to offer small to medium sized businesses…
The team at creative agency, Hamilton-Brown, with offices in London and Bristol have announced a new collaboration with the social enterprise, 64 Million Artists (64MA). Founded in 2014, 64 Million Artists is a social enterprise founded in the belief that everyone is creative and, when people use their creativity, they can make positive change in their lives and the world around them. This also chimes with the ethics of Hamilton-Brown, a creative agency which works with organisations including Osborne Clarke, CBRE, BDO, Investec Management and Korn Ferry. Zara Weston, Head of Hamilton-Brown Bristol said: “We loved the vision behind 64…
Fraser Allen Estate Management which celebrates five years in business this year now manages blocks of flats in Bristol, Bath, Wiltshire, Stroud, Cheltenham and London – and now has 30 blocks on its books. Founder and managing director, Jodie said: “I am really proud of what has been achieved with the business in such a short space of time. The business is growing and it’s now time to bring in full-time staff to support me and allow a team to provide excellent service to our clients and residents.” The two new staff members are Alice Baker (27) from Cheltenham and…
Surrey free-from food company Creative Nature and its CEO Julianne Ponan scooped two prestigious titles at the 2021 Surrey Business Awards. The awards, organised by Platinum Media Group, are the largest event of its kind in the county with more than 320 of the county’s leading businesspeople gathered for the event held at Denbies Wine Estate near Dorking. Creative Nature, which has its HQ in West Molesey, was named International Business of the Year and Julianne was named Business Person of the Year. She said: “I am absolutely delighted Creative Nature scooped up two of the biggest awards on the…
Vitality has designed a free workplace wellbeing toolkit to help employers improve the wellbeing of employees. This follows reports that only a quarter (27%) of UK employees feel their employer cares about their overall wellbeing* and that three quarters (75%) of UK companies plan to improve their mental health services in the wake of the pandemic**. To help employers build an effective long-term workplace wellbeing strategy, Vitality has produced a free, bespoke toolkit which includes a guide, digital learning platform and other useful tools; all of which are available online. The guide explores the benefits of having a supportive workplace culture for companies, as…
Up to 50% of businesses fail within the first five years, and by the end of 10 years, just 30% survive[1]. Sussex-based business coaching company, UK Growth Coach, is highlighting the importance of business coaches to help businesses recover after the pandemic’s challenges. According to Statista, during the period of April 2020 – August 2021, 11.6 million jobs have been supported by the Government’s furlough scheme. With the scheme having ended on 30 September 2021, those same employees now need to be funded from the businesses’ own finances or risk being made redundant. Many businesses now have the pressure of…