The UK Business Angels Association launches online connected angel marketplace with JustInvesting

 

 

Expected to become the largest single market for angel investments in the UK, with over 15,000 angels and 180 organisations on board

 

17th December 2015, London: The UK Business Angels Association (‘UKBAA’), the trade body representing over 15,000 angel investors and 180 organisations in the early-stage investment market, has launched the UKBAA DealShare Platform.

The DealShare Platform, which is powered by JustInvesting, is the first of its type to allow private investors, angel investment organisations and early-stage venture capital investors from across the UK to interact and collaborate online. The platform allows investors to showcase investment-ready deals, share latest opportunities and interact with potential co-investors, saving time and effort in building and closing deals.

Built by JustInvesting, the UKBAA DealShare Platform makes use of pioneering investment technology to provide a more efficient, technology-enabled, compliant environment to connect investors – supporting UKBAA’s mission to be the hub for the UK’s angel investment market, which is currently worth £1.5bn annually (based on Enterprise Investment Scheme figures). The JustInvesting technology will also provide the UKBAA with valuable intelligence and data on the UK angel market.

The new angel investment marketplace is exclusively available to UKBAA members and is expected to become the largest single market for angel investments in the UK.

Jenny Tooth, CEO of UKBAA said: “The angel and early-stage investment market in the UK remains fragmented and geographically patchy with over 60% of the investment capacity focused on London and the South East. JustInvesting offers a strong technology foundation and compliant framework for UKBAA to establish a connected entrepreneurial finance value chain for the UK.”

“The UKBAA DealShare Platform offers an opportunity to build new and dynamic co-investment relationships across regional boundaries to ensure entrepreneurs can access the finance they need to grow their business. The aim is to provide a connected pathway for finance, backing the UK’s entrepreneurs from start-up to scale-up.”

Bob Wigley, Chair of JustInvesting and ex-Member Board of Bank of England said: “Angel investment activity in the UK market is a key driver for the economy and increasingly important in supporting innovation. We are delighted that UKBAA, as the leading player in the sector, has chosen JustInvesting to support their strategy to bring efficiencies and connectivity to this market. Partnering with UKBAA is the ideal way to employ our technology platform to turbocharge the connection of SMEs who need growth capital with angels and other investors who can provide it".

 

 

 

VentureFounders supports cancer charity Maggie’s fundraising campaign for new Centre

 

 

VentureFounders, the UK-based equity investment platform, has announced its support for cancer charity Maggie’s in its aim to raise £1m to fund crucial support at a new Maggie’s Centre that is being built in the grounds of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in Smithfield.

 

The £1 million will be crucial in helping Maggie’s provide each person that comes through the Centre’s doors with the support they need, be it psychological support, financial advice, access to information about their diagnosis and treatment or simply to sit quietly with a cup of tea.

 

VentureFounders is encouraging investors to donate in this Christmas fundraising campaign through its platform and has promised to cover all of the costs associated with any donations to Maggie’s, including credit card fees. The VentureFounders team will also be donating a percentage of the money they make via investments on the platform.

 

Maggie’s and St. Bartholomew’s hospital are working in partnership to build a new Centre which will provide vital practical, emotional and social support for thousands of cancer patients and their families.  Maggie’s anticipate that the Centre will receive over 20,000 visits per year once opened.  Maggie's relies on voluntary donations to support and grow its network of centres and to develop its unique, high quality programme of support. The charity’s aim is to make the biggest difference possible to people living with cancer and their family and friends across London and the UK.

 

James Codling, Managing Director of VentureFounders, said:  “We are fully behind this initiative as we strongly believe that corporates should give something back to the community.  We also wanted to give investors the option of donating to charity directly through VentureFounders.

 

“We believe we are the first equity investment platform to take part in a charity campaign of this type.  The whole team is looking forward to getting involved with both fundraising and volunteering over the coming months.”

 

“I really hope the investor community embraces the campaign, helping us to make the biggest difference possible to people affected by cancer across the City and beyond,” says Maggie’s chief executive Laura Lee.

 

 

To donate please visit: www.venturefounders.co.uk/maggies

 

 

Linux Foundation Unites Industry Leaders to Advance Blockchain Technology

 

 

New open ledger project to transform the way business transactions are conducted around the world

 

SAN FRANCISCO, December 17, 2015 -The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced a new collaborative effort to advance the popular blockchain technology.

 

Early commitments to this work come from ANZ Bank, Cisco, CLS, Credits, Digital Asset Holdings, Fujitsu, IC3, IBM, Intel, London Stock Exchange Group, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MFUG), State Street, SWIFT, VMware and Wells Fargo.

 

The project will develop an enterprise grade, open source distributed ledger framework and free developers to focus on building robust, industry-specific applications, platforms and hardware systems to support business transactions.     

 

Many of the founding members are already investing considerable research and development efforts exploring blockchain applications for industry. IBM intends to donate tens of thousands of lines of its existing codebase and its corresponding intellectual property to this open source community. Digital Asset is contributing the well-known Hyperledger name to the project, which will be used for future branding of this effort, as well as enterprise grade code and developer resources. These contributions, among others planned from a variety of companies, will all be reviewed in detail in the weeks ahead by formation and Technical Steering Committees.  

 

Blockchain is a digital technology for recording and verifying transactions. The distributed ledger is a permanent, secure tool that makes it easier to create cost-efficient business networks without requiring a centralized point of control. With distributed ledgers, virtually anything of value can be tracked and traded. The application of this emerging technology is showing great promise in the enterprise. For example, it allows securities to be settled in minutes instead of days. It can be used to help companies manage the flow of goods and related payments or enable manufacturers to share production logs with OEMs and regulators to reduce product recalls.

 

“Distributed ledgers are poised to transform a wide range of industries from banking and shipping to the Internet of Things, among others,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “As with any early-stage, highly-complex technology that demonstrates the ability to change the way we live our lives and conduct business, blockchain demands a cross-industry, open source collaboration to advance the technology for all.”

 

Distributed ledger systems today are being built in a variety of industries but to realize the promise of this emerging technology, an open source and collaborative development strategy that supports multiple players in multiple industries is required. This development combined with the Hyperledger brand can enable the adoption of blockchain technology at a pace and depth not achievable by any one company or industry. This type of shared or external Research & Development (R&D) has proven to deliver billions in economic value.

 

This collaboration is expected to help identify and address important features and currently missing requirements for a cross-industry open standard for distributed ledgers that can transform the way business transactions are conducted around the world.

 

For more information about the project and how to participate in this work, please visit:

 

Comments

 

ANZ Bank

ANZ CTO Patrick Maes said, “We are pleased to confirm our participation in the open ledger project as we recognise that there is currently no industry accepted, enterprise-grade blockchain framework today that is fit for purpose for our industry. Our objectives around blockchain initiatives are that we will seek to learn, explore and contribute to the development of a global framework with our ecosystem partners, and ANZ is uniquely placed in this regard since we operate in 34 markets.” Nigel Dobson, ANZ’s General Manager of Payments Transformation said he sees involvement with the project as an opportunity to explore and contribute to real-world, bank-grade applications of the technology and wider frameworks. “I see significant potential opportunities in the future to improve our customer experience and potentially deliver productivity gains by solving real business challenges, with initial use cases in payments and particularly correspondent banking.”

 

CLS

“CLS is pleased to participate in this broad industry-wide effort to standardize and advance Distributed Ledger Technology.” said David Puth, CEO of CLS.  “A common DLT platform on which product specific solutions can be built is key to the successful adoption of this technology.”

 

Credits

"Distributed Ledger Technology is quickly becoming the most exciting industry to help build out," said Credits CEO & Founder, Nick Williamson. "It's initiatives like the open ledger project that will help cut through the noise stemming from the hype cycle and start bringing substance to this nascent industry."

 

Digital Asset

“We are delighted that the Linux Foundation is providing a broadly-supported vehicle through which we can contribute the Hyperledger brand, and enterprise grade blockchain solutions to the open source community,” said Blythe Masters, CEO of Digital Asset. “The resulting impetus will benefit our clients and the entire global financial services industry who are seeking to build business applications on a trusted foundation."

 

IC3

"IC3 - Initiative for CryptoCurrencies and Contracts - is delighted to be a part of this initiative and bring the strengths of its team of academic researchers—rigorous security analysis, expertise in distributed systems and cutting-edge cryptography, and an interdisciplinary perspective—to this vibrant new community.” - - Ari Juels, Jacobs Institute, Cornell Tech; Andrew Miller, Univ. of Maryland; Elaine Shi, Cornell University; and Gun Sirer, Cornell University. 

 

IBM

“A broad, cross-industry and open source approach is critical to advance the potential for blockchain and make it mainstream,” said Arvind Krishna, Senior Vice President and Director, IBM Research. “Even beyond building out standards, creating common code will allow organizations to focus on creating industry-specific applications that enhance the value of this technology.”

 

Intel
"Open source software is very well suited to be the basis of highly-complex technologies that require secure transactions,” said Imad Sousou, vice president and general manager, Open Source Technology Center, Intel Corporation. “The open ledger project can help enable the industry to focus on a shared infrastructure to help create value and impactful innovation."

 

London Stock Exchange Group

Moiz Kohari, Group Head of Technology Innovation, London Stock Exchange Group said: “LSEG is committed to an open source collaborative approach to the development of the building blocks for blockchain technology. We believe this technology has the potential to drive change across the industry but will need to be developed in partnership with clients and other industry participants under an open source approach. This needs to be done in a considered and rigorous manner to benefit the market as a whole.”

 

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MFUG)

"The evolution of information and communication technology including blockchain is the origin of new market creation," said Satoshi Murabayashi, Senior Managing Executive Officer and Group CIO, MUFG. "The new product and services supported by open innovation platform is key factor for Japan and world economy. MUFG supports this project for creating innovative financial services."

 

State Street

"Advancement in distributed ledgers can provide tremendous evolutionary opportunities in financial services, and drive new opportunities and efficiencies in institutional investing,” said Antoine Shagoury, global chief information officer at State Street. “The work the open ledger project is focused on is an important first step as coordinating open standards will help this technology achieve the critical mass it needs.”

 

 

SWIFT
“SWIFT is delighted to support this industry-wide effort to advance distributed ledger technology,” said Craig Young, SWIFT’s Chief Technology Officer. “Cooperation and collaboration – hallmarks of the SWIFT cooperative – will be key to ensuring the scalability and adoption of this technology.”