Tech Spending in 2022 Forecast
An increased focus on investing in business outcomes as opposed to buying finished products underlies Gartner’s expectations for sustained growth in IT services — 9.8% in 2021, with a CAGR of 8.68% over the 2020-2025 period (second only to software at 11.9%).
Also noticeable in Gartner’s forecast is a sharp near-$100 billion rise in spending on devices in 2021, most of which is attributable to the rapid shift to remote working during the pandemic, as companies reacted to the initial shock and stabilized their operations.
That reactive phase is now largely over, Gartner says, with most companies preparing to reach the ‘next normal’ — exiting phase 3 of the analyst firm’s COVID response model (‘rebounding to the future’) and moving into phase 4 (‘accelerating opportunities’) as per chart above.
Source: Gartner, ZDNet
US and Asian Investment in UK Tech Skyrockets
The UK tech sector has attracted more foreign investment in the first seven months of 2019 than it did during the whole of last year, according to latest industry figures, and has overtaken the US for foreign investment, per capita.
Research prepared for the Digital Economy Council by Tech Nation and Dealroom.co shows that between January and July this year, UK-based tech firms received a staggering $6.7 billion in funding – with $3.7 billion, or 55%, coming from American and Asian investors thanks to billion dollar tech companies such as energy supplier OVO Energy and food delivery startup Deliveroo.
The sector is attracting an average of $1bn a month from both foreign and domestic investors – one and a half times the amount raised during the same period last year – making the UK one of the most attractive and dynamic markets in Europe.
Lawtech start-up Autto raises $1m
Autto, the simplified automation provider, has announced that it has raised $1m in funding, its second significant round since the company launched in February 2018. The finance has been raised from existing angel investors, a UK government grant, and new investment from Tangible, a corporate legal platform in the US. The funding will be used to evolve Autto’s platform to deliver the next generation of simple automation, as well as to conduct further research, in partnership with the University of Exeter, into lawtech adoption.
Autto offers simplified automation capabilities via its SaaS-based platform. Organisations use Autto to create workflows to automate routine tasks, enabling staff to spend more time doing the jobs that they love. It is targeted at professional sector organisations who are keen to embrace emerging technologies but struggle with the cost and complexity of current high-end solutions. With Autto’s intuitive and easy to use automation platform users can start creating and automating workflows within an hour, with initial starter plans free of charge.
London-based UK startup Autto raises $1m funding
Artificial Intelligence for Energy Efficiency
As energy systems worldwide continue to decarbonise and decentralise, there is an increasing need to manage and predict the distributed constituents of the system, such as renewables, EVs and battery storage, the letter says.
AI will be “essential” to managing this system and the data that comes with it, the letter continues, adding that London is “the European capital for AI and acts as a base to 750+ AI companies – double the total of Paris and Berlin combined”.
How Artificial Intelligence Can Help Protect Children?
How Artificial Intelligence Can Help Protect Children?
London start-up developing child safety technology that can stop children sending dangerous messages even before they finish typing has raised millions from investors and sealed a deal with the German government to get its app onto the phones of thousands of children.
SafeToNet, which develops software that can limit what children access on their smartphone and prompt them if they are in a dangerous situation, raised £7m in cash at a £50m valuation from angel investors and current investor West Hill Capital. It brings its total raised to around £20m.
Venture capital spending hits all-time high in 2019
Venture capital (VC) funding in the UK soared to a record high during the first half of this year, bolstered by a growing appetite for tech investments. Venture capital spending hits all-time high in 2019.
Funding in VC rose to £4.3bn during the first half of 2019, rising 45 per cent on the same period last year.
The average deal size for UK VC investment doubled to £5.9m in the first half of the year with 724 deals recorded, compared with 1,147 in the first six months of 2019.
Legal & General Retail Retirement acquires MyFutureNow
Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, believes technological developments will play an increasingly significant role in getting Millennials and Generation Z savers to engage with their pensions and plan for retirement.
In its latest opinion paper, Digital Vision for Life and Pensions, Atos highlights how the industry’s future is being determined through new technologies including AI, cloud, intelligent automation, data analytics and machine learning.
The pace at which providers respond to this disruption will be significant in determining how attractive their offering is to savers and, consequently, their market share for years to come with the advent of the pensions dashboard a reflection of the digital change shaping the sector.
Investment App Robinhood Wins License to Operate in UK
Robinhood, a stocks, ETFs and crypto investment app, has been given the green light to operate as a broker in the U.K. Investment App Robinhood Wins License to Operate in UK.
Allowing the firm to now launch its offerings in the U.K. market, the firm’s subsidiary, Robinhood International, has received a broker’s license from the country’s financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the firm announced on Wednesday.
With the news, Robinhood also revealed that it’s appointed former TransferWise exec Wander Rutgers as president to lead its U.K. operations from a new London office.
Chart: AI vs Lawyers
Machine-learning algorithm LawGeex beats 20 lawyers in NDA legal analysis of five contracts.
Time to complete task: Lawyers 92-minutes, AI 26 seconds!
Mean accuracy level: Lawyers 85%, AI 94%
Source: LawGeex
