Welcome to your Week in Tech – our video round up of this week’s top technology news.
Investments
Currency transfer app Revolut has landed up to £6.75m in Series A funding in a round led by Balderton Capital. Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Ribit Capital, Index Ventures, Point Nine Capital, Venrex and Seedcamp also invested in the round.
FiveAI, which is leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to accelerate the arrival of self-driving vehicles, has closed a $2.7m equity funding round led by Amadeus Capital.
PropTech firm Settled has raised £1m in seed funding led by Silicon Valley-based VC 500 Startups.
FinTech startup Moneybox received an additional $1.75m in a funding round led by Oxford Capital Partners to help their mission to encourage young people to save.
Travel money service WeSwap closed a $10m round from Ascot Capital Partners, EC1 Capital and existing investors IW Capital.
Theresa May
The UK tech community has largely welcomed Theresa May’s appointment as the country’s new Prime Minister.
Following weeks of uncertainty surrounding the Brexit referendum, Russ Shaw, founder of Tech London Advocates, said: “The city’s tech entrepreneurs and business leaders need to continue driving job creation, innovation and disruption regardless of individuals or parties in national government.”
Meanwhile, the government has awarded £16m to 24 innovative agricultural tech projects. The fund known as Agri-Tech Catalyst seeks to solve some of the world’s agricultural challenges ranging from food security and sustainability, to weed control and livestock disease.
Facebook Messenger
In other news, Facebook is trialling a self-destructing messaging system.
The Snapchat style system makes messages disappear once they have been read whilst allowing users to opt-in to secret conversations and set timers on the visibility of their messages.
The tech giant is trialing this feature alongside end-to-end encryption for enhanced privacy in more sensitive conversations.
Download of the Week
Our ‘Download of the Week’ is Battery Share.
The app lets you track your contact’s phone battery and gives you a final chance to contact them before their phone dies.
It has a built-in status bar that lists those who have chosen to share their status, allowing you to see who has a full bar and who needs to plug in.
And Finally…
And finally, people across the UK have been busy catching Pokemons this week in a game that bridges virtual reality and the real world.
The game has already surpassed popular dating app Tinder in numbers of downloads and users even before launching officially in the UK.
… That’s all for this week! For more videos visit our YouTube Channel and follow us on Twitter.