Startups stories

AI fintech Cleo stages UK comeback with a waitlisted app, betting its chatty budgeting assistant can ease mounting money anxiety.

As AI reshapes tech, women still battle entrenched bias; only a deliberately human lens can turn this revolution into real inclusion.

NeuBird AI appoints Venkat Ramakrishnan president and COO to scale its agentic AI SRE platform and expand global commercial operations.

Telna launches a USD $100m fund to back travel eSIM apps, MVNOs and Super Apps, aiming to speed global growth in digital roaming services.

Sixthfin debuts Closing in the UK, an AI-enabled tool to automate period-end account reconciliation and tighten financial close controls.

Qualtrics appoints former Oracle executive Jason Maynard as CEO to spearhead AI-driven growth and a USD $6.75 billion Press Ganey deal.

Fintech investor Brian Collins has been appointed CEO of Enterprize Tasmania as it ramps up support for the state’s growing startup scene.

DLA Piper has promoted Edward Eisdell-Moore to partner in its Auckland technology and data practice, effective 1 January 2026.

UK online parcels jumped 17% in late 2025 as pet care and beauty surged, even as fashion and homewares shipments slid, Scurri data shows.

OpenAI unveils an Australia-wide AI push, pairing a Sydney supercomputer campus with skills training and new startup support schemes.

AI companions are edging into the mainstream, prompting doubts over whether digital pets could reshape - but not replace - traditional pet ownership.

Toyota teams with digital insurer Cuvva to launch app-based, short-term comprehensive car cover for Toyota and Lexus drivers across the UK.

Etleap launches a unified Iceberg data pipeline platform, promising simpler, scalable management of Apache Iceberg table operations.

Arcus Compliance founder Lee Bryan’s new book urges start-ups to treat regulation as a strategic growth engine, not a drag on innovation.

Asia-Pacific startup founders are growing older but no less ambitious, with most over 45 and four in ten still chasing unicorn valuations.

Azzet names governance veteran Henry Stoever to its board as it accelerates the global rollout of its premium asset marketplace.

AiDeliv’s reverse-auction marketplace is slashing ocean freight for small importers to an average of USD $0.65 per kilo, data shows.

Evaro raises USD $25m to scale embedded “healthcare-as-a-service” in the UK, aiming to reach 10m patients and ease NHS primary care strain.

Mastercard launches BIN Sponsor Plus in the UK, accrediting card sponsors to give fintechs a vetted route into issuing and payments at scale.

Google Cloud opens its first Bangkok region in a USD $1 billion Thailand push, promising AI growth, data residency and thousands of jobs.