London Brief #48: £400K fine from ICO, Trump got the message, secret deal of Alphabet and an opportunity to star in a startup sitcom.
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People
Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham has fined Carphone Warehouse £400,000 for the failure to secure the system allowed unauthorised access to the personal data of over three million customers and 1,000 employees in a 2015 cyber-attack.
Donald Trump has cancelled his visit to London. Mayor Sadiq Khan says, that U.S. President “got the message” from Londoners. Trump claims its Obama’s fault.
According to TechCrunch, amidst cuts, Richard White, co-founder and CEO of Goodlord is due to leave the company.
GV (formerly known as Google Ventures) London-based general partner Avid Larizadeh Duggan is joining music startup Kobalt as EVP, Chief Strategy and Business Officer. Before GV, Avid co-founded a fashion marketplace Boticca.
In the news
Future Travel Experience (FTE) unveiled the FTE Startup Hub and announced JetBlue Technology Ventures as the launch Corporate Partner. The FTE Startup Hub focuses on four core areas: Inspiration & Booking, Airport, Inflight, and Pre- & Post-Travel, mirroring Future Travel Experience’s focus on improving the end-to-end travel experience.
AVADO, the digitally-powered professional learning business, has moved into the Translation & Innovation Hub (I-HUB) at Imperial College London’s White City Campus.
Fake it till you make it! Mandarini Productions is looking for a female lead to star in the startup sitcom. The role pays £100 per episode, and you can join the casting here.
Reports and Rankings
Preparing for Brexit, Cambridge Econometrics for London Greater Authority
Business as usual
- Redux, a startup focused on technology that turns surfaces such as phone displays into speakers, has been silently acquired by Google’s Alphabet for an undisclosed amount.
- The Plum Guide, a marketplace for short-term renting of homes in London, raised £5.7m in Series A funding in a round led by Octopus Ventures.
- Tussell, a platform offering data on Government contracts, has raised £1m in Seed funding from angel investors.
- Digital Fineprint, an AI solution to find and optimize leads for Insurance companies has raised £2m in the round led by Pentech
- Hometree, a new way in which consumers can buy a new boiler, has raised £2.9m in a round led by Literacy Capital.
- CityStasher, a sharing economy platform for lost luggage, has received $1.1m in a seed round led by Venture Friends.
- Previse, an AI-supported payment factoring solution for SMEs, has received a £800,000 R&D grant from Scottish Enterprise.
Number of the day
92,000 — UK jobs in tech and science is in danger in the worst-case no deal Brexit scenario, according to the analysis commissioned by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan in Cambridge Econometrics.
Idea
London Brief is a weekly selection of essential information about startups, technology and the business scene in London. Got news? Give us a shout at londonbrief@netguru.co.
Radek Zaleski
On behalf of the London Brief Team
