The PayPal news is definitely one indicator of change. But much more radical shifts are already well underway. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has over $80bn locked in it, having started only a couple of years ago. DeFi lets you control your funds while accessing a global financial system that operates 24/7, is highly capital efficient, transparent and automated, and innovates at blistering speed due to the power of permissionless networks. DeFi is still tiny compared to traditional finance, but it will eventually win as surely as emails came to dominate the fax machine.

Seven years ago, I had an idea for an app that would change the way women approach their health and wellness during pregnancy. Six years ago, that idea turned into my launching Baby2Body as a sole founder, and three years later, we brought out our first app. Today, Baby2Body is the award-winning health and wellness app that provides personalized coaching for women in their reproductive years. We have surpassed 2 million members from all over the world, and I could not be more proud of what we have created.

When I left my home country of South Africa for the UK in pursuit of a Computer Science Master’s Degree, I didn’t expect to embark on an entrepreneurial journey.

Investors’ and advisors’ mantra is “focus on only one segment of the value chain”. Those are wise words… Unfortunately, when you’ve seen up close-up the root causes of the insurance sector’s failure to gain the consumer’s trust, you realise it couldn’t be solved by addressing a single value chain segment. The entire value chain and proposition needed redesign. Daunting prospect when financial backers shy away from such an ambitious approach.

What was your vision for founding Cervest? Tell us more about how Climate Intelligence plays into this.
The idea for Cervest was conceived as I was operating my sustainable agribusiness company in Ghana. Although well-funded, we had no way to assess how climate change affected yields and processing assets.  This led me to team up with mathematicians to help quantify climate risk – and that’s where Climate Intelligence (CI) comes into play.

Apple is typically ‘first’ in terms of category defining products and services. They know what the consumer wants and needs well before the consumer does. But in this case they are comfortable slotting in as a fast follower. Klarna and others have trailblazed their way into becoming an already developed fintech solution which, a business as large and powerful as Apple, is comfortable replicating and integrating into their own services. It is both a logical piece of innovation as well as a sign of a well developed fintech market.

Matt Cooper
Chief Commercial Officer of Crowdcube

The UK’s population of over 60s is set to increase by 3.1m over the next decade – an increase of 19% to 20 million individuals. All with their own sense of purpose, needs and wants. According to ONS estimates, the over 60s also account for 49% of the total household wealth in Great Britain, a whopping £7.2 trillion2.

Intellectual property exists to enable you to protect the non-tangible assets of your company. In this article we take a brief look at trade marks. The name of your business and of its products and services are likely among your company’s key assets. They are the trade marks which you use to denote your company’s goods and services from those of any competitor. Ensuring you have protected them as best you can and that you choose them well in the first place are important in ensuring you minimise trouble ahead and to assist in demonstrating to investors that some of your core assets are on a secure footing.

Every entrepreneur is hardwired to think we can innovate our way out of anything, let’s make this better, faster, or of course, more delicious… The climate crisis is, without a doubt, this generation of founders’ biggest opportunity to innovate. Across every industry, there is a unique, pressing and massive need to build a more sustainable future, and at the same time develop these new solutions into building high scale ventures with purpose.

The year 2020 was full of unexpected situations. I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be working from home with a crazy dog, a new kitten, children homeschooling – and a million critical business decisions to make before my second cup of coffee. My worlds merged unsettlingly: I would be deep in discussion with the Blis executive team regarding cash forecasts with my five-year-old son demanding, “wipe my bum!” from along the hall.