Welcome to The Week in Tech – your roundup of this week’s top technology news. We filmed this episode from the office of comparison service uSwitch and property search site Zoopla. This week, we bring you investments of over £16m, the government’s Digital Strategy, an 81-year-old app developer and more.
Investment news
In investment news, financial automation service Dealflo announced a £10m Series B led by Holtzbrinck Ventures. Additional funds were provided by Notion Capital and Frog Capital.
Cybersecurity startup ZoneFox secured a £3.6m Series A round led by Scottish business angel investment syndicate Archangels. The Edinburgh-based firm said the new funding will enable it to triple headcount, open a new HQ and set up a team in London.
Real estate investment platform BrickVest raised £2m from a number of angel investors. This forms part of the PropTech firm’s latest financing round, which it has increased to £4m.
London-based FinTech startup Squirrel raised almost £460,000 on crowdfunding platform SyndicateRoom, exceeding its £400,000 target. The firm’s financial management and savings app is designed to help people regain control of their money.
Best of British
The UK government announced its Digital Strategy, revealing plans to offer over four million free digital skills training opportunities. The likes of Google, Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group are to play a part in offering this skills training.
Dyson announced it is to begin work on a new multimillion-pound research and development centre in the UK. This is part of the company’s £2.5bn investment into future technologies. The firm plans to double its workforce to around 7,000 in the next five years.
Overseas
Snapchat’s parent company Snap IPO’ed raising $3.4bn. The firms valuation reportedly reached $23.8bn.
Download
Our download of the week was mentioned earlier in the episode – it’s Squirrel, the savings management app. The app enables you to separate your everyday spending money from your bills money and you can also set and save towards goals, such as that dream holiday.
And finally
And finally, a Japanese woman has released her first app at the age of 81.
Masako Wakamiya has released an app that shows people how to properly display traditional dolls for the Japanese day of celebration called Hinamatsuri. She also has a blog and teaches people how to use Excel to make digital art.
That’s all from this episode of The Week in Tech. For more top tech news, visit our website and follow us on Twitter.