|
 =access for Registered users.  =access for Subscribed users
A competition for £7.2 million funding for companies to develop hydrogen and fuel cell technology is now available from the Technology Strategy Board. The competition is being funded by UK Department of Energy and Climate Change and is part of a low carbon technologies stimulus package. Click here for more.
A staggering 44 percent of small business owners, equivalent to 2,068,000* individuals, have admitted suffering sleepless nights worrying about the economic crisis according to new research. The latest Small Business Finance Barometer from Close Invoice Finance, based on a survey of over 500 SME owner managers, also found that seven in 10 owner managers are significantly more stressed as a result of the economic downturn with almost half (43 percent) confessing it has had direct impact on their home life. More here.
When developing a new aircraft engine design, it can have upwards of 3000 sensors attached to it when it is on the test-bed. Routing all the 3000 cables and wires to the sensors and bringing them all back to a collection point is a big challenge, especially when they are running over a vibrating engine. Add to this the complexity of monitoring wear and tear of new advanced fibre-based components. Now, engineers at Scotland's Institute for System Level Integration (iSLI) are to begin work on a £3.3millon project to design a wireless sensor system for next generation commercial aircraft engines. Click here for more.
As part of its heavy push for encouraging and motivating the US based cleantech industry and a path to energy independence, the US Treasury and the Department of Energy has announced a program to award $2.3 billion in tax credits for manufacturers of advanced energy equipment. The new tax credit program provides developers with an investment tax credit of 30 percent for facilities that manufacture particular types of energy equipment - this is on top of the $3 billion tax credit for cleantech energy operators. Companies can expect to receive payments within 180 days of filing for the credit. More information here.
Entrepreneurs failing to make tough decisions
Surviving through current recession is a higher priority than growing the business, exporting, fighting for market share, deciding where to cut costs; these are some of the results of the annual Entrepreneurship UK report by Deloitte, the business advisory firm. James Caan, entrepreneur and report contributor, comments, “Companies may be tempted to retreat in this environment to the things they know best. I believe entrepreneurs need to use their skills to achieve the right balance between containing costs and expanding the business and they still need to take acceptable risks. They are best placed to understand and assess the risks." More here.
 Positive Asian production trend - leads the road to ICT recovery
The current economic climate has really hit hard on the global ICT (information, computer, communication, technology) industry’s trade and production level (down by 40 percent). Inventory build up has been worse than the dot com crash era. Japan and its interconnected Asian production countries (China, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong) were particularly hit hard by the down-turn. R&D expenditure cuts, in the hard hit sectors of electronics and semiconductors, are worse than the R&D cuts in 2001. Click here for more.
VC contribution role vastly exaggerated
While the venture capital industry is known for backing icons such as Google, Genentech and Microsoft , only one in five of the fastest growing and most successful companies in the United States had venture investors: in other words 4 out of 5 didn’t require or take venture capital investment. Less than 1 percent of new businesses rely on VC source. Two years of dot.com bubble era hyper-returns conceal the poor overall VC returns on a longer horizon. The VC industry has become conflated with entrepreneurship in the popular imagination as well as in official policy circles, with the result being a widespread and incorrect belief that venture capital is a necessary and sufficient condition in driving growth and entrepreneurship. The latest investor returns and exit data spells a major disparity for the current VC capacity and industry model. We explore these findings from a major controversial report. Click here to download the full report.
According to a new study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, challenging economic times and subsequent unemployment can benefit new enterprises: entrepreneurs may view unemployment as an opportunity to start a company, and seize the advantage provided by the ability to tap into a larger pool of potential employees. The report also suggests a broader economic trend, with job creation from start-up companies proving to be less volatile and sensitive to downturns when compared to the overall economy. Click here for more.
The British Business Angels Association, the UK trade body representing angel and early stage investing, in partnership with the UK’s nine regional development agencies (RDAs), local business angel networks and BERR have kick-started a national PR and marketing programme to encourage and recruit more angel investors. Angels bring 'smart money', offering not only finance, but important skills and experience to build small businesses - but there are now insufficient business angel investors in the UK to provide early stage risk capital to SMEs in the current downturn. Read more here.
Despite the poor economic climate, new business formation in the US continued to increased in 2008. It was mostly lead by immigrants, women, and older Americans (aged 55 to 64), according to latest trends data found in the annual Kauffman index of entrepreneurial activity. An average of 0.32 percent of the adult population (or 320 out of 100,000 adults) created a new business each month - representing approximately 530,000 new business formations per month - as compared to 0.30 percent in 2007. There is , however a potential harbinger behind these figures. Click here to read more.
Best time ever to do a cleantech start-up
With the European Tech Tour Cleantech Summit taking place this month, Bernard Vogel, co-founder and managing partner of Endeavour Vision, a firm which focuses on cleantech and technology investments, says now is the best time ever to start a cleantech start-up. He highlights the fact that there is a lot of money to be invested by investors in cleantech start-ups, a lot of money promised to cleantech projects by government, and this is backed up with significant media attention. Vogel says “In the current economic context, cleantech and renewable energies will benefit from the stimulus packages launched in several countries. In Europe, the Commission announced on 9th March that €105bn will be invested in the green economy through the EU cohesion policy.” Click here to read more.
Regardless of the merit of Google’s acquiring YouTube for $1.65 billion, and its valuations, one must not underestimate the power of guanxi amongst the silicon valley networks. The co-founders of YouTube had all worked together in engineering at PayPal, the online card payment system provider, which was later acquired by eBay. After PayPal was sold to eBay, the PayPal alumni stayed in touch with each other. Since leaving PayPal, they have helped each other out, finding them new contacts, introducing them to their personal networks, tapping into their start-up DNA pool and learning from their previous mistakes. Click here.
Seven directors a day being disqualified
As a result of large numbers of corporate insolvencies, a 43.6 percent rise in Q1’09 alone, large numbers of company directors are being disqualified. Currently, some seven directors a day are disqualified as a result of investigations conducted by the UK Insolvency Service. Click here to read more.
The UK government effort to reduce the confusing number of publicly funded business support schemes from over 3,000 to less than 100 by 2010 is making steady progress with the introduction of nine more products: Enterprise Coaching, Improving Your Resource Efficiency, Collaborative R&D, Networking for Innovation, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, Innovation Vouchers, Low Carbon Energy Demonstration, Grant for R&D, Rural Development Programme for England. If you are confused - well some are actually re-branding of old programmes under new themes. Click here.
For companies in telecoms and IT, the green shoots of economic recovery are virtually nowhere to be seen, according to a new survey. Sixty-six percent of respondents expect the financial health of tech companies to worsen in the next six months, and fewer than 10 percent say it will improve.
Archives
|
