Your weekly summary of entrepreneurship news, comment, and features. Sent by the Centre for Entrepreneurs (home of StartUp Britain). Sign up here. Read the original newsletter here.
News
Prime Minister commits £70m to a new scheme to encourage business people to mentor teenagers
The PM has said that he wants a “new generation of high-flying mentors” from Britain’s leading businesses to mentor at-risk teenagers. Read more.
Number of businesses showing signs of distress plummets with healthier-looking profits and sales
The number of businesses showing signs of distress has fallen to its lowest level since March 2012, according to R3 – the trade body for insolvency professionals. Read more.
Duke of York invites biotech startups to pitch to investors
The Duke of York has announced that St James’s Palace will host a fresh event for startups in March, following the success of four previous Pitch@Palace events, which have helped 150 entrepreneurs find new customers and raise capital. Read more.
Small UK fitness ventures muscle in on gym chains with 37% growth
The number of health and fitness SMEs operating in the UK has jumped by 37%, Barclays Business has found, effectively applying pressure on traditional gym chains. Read more.
Opinion
Why failure is such a powerful force in business
Conventional logic suggests that failure doesn’t feature in the vocabularies of entrepreneurs. But it’s the fear of failing that drives so many startups to unbridled success, writes Anil Stocker (co-founder and CEO, Market Invoice). Read more.
The crowdfunding industry came of age in 2015, what’s next?
Luke Lang (co-founder and CMO, Crowdcube) looks back at some of the key crowdfunding trends from 2015 and makes predictions for the year ahead. Read more.
What London needs from the next Mayor
The race to become London’s next mayor has begun, and now more than ever we need a tech champion at the controls at City Hall, writes Gerard Grech (chief executive, Tech City UK). Read more.
Don’t rely on government to defeat cyber crime: business needs to get its act together
If 2015 taught us anything, it’s that it is now a question of when, not if, our data will be compromised. Therefore 2016 must be the year that business gets serious about the importance of cyber crime, writes Emma Carr (head of technology, Hanover Comms). Read more.
Features
A billion dollar bet: the difficulty of leading a ‘unicorn firm’
The BBC profile Frederic Mazella, founder of BlaBlaCar. Read more.