// NEWS //
London entrepreneurship moves east as Hackney property prices rise
for small business density in London across the past 12 months, all outpacing Hackney. As part of GoDaddy’ s study, each borough in London received a‘ Microbusiness Density’ count – which is used to track the rate at which the number of small businesses per 100 people is increasing year-on-year.
GoDaddy’ s analysis shows that London is still the UK’ s most entrepreneurial city, beating Aberdeen and Coventry in a recent ranking.
London continues to lead the UK in overall start-up and small business activity, according to fresh data from GoDaddy’ s Small Business Research Lab. However, rising housing costs in established hotspots like Hackney are prompting more founders to set up shop further east – reshaping the city’ s entrepreneurial map.
GoDaddy’ s research reveals that Tower Hamlets, Barking & Dagenham and Redbridge are the fastest-growing boroughs
Tower Hamlets, spanning much of the East End of London and the London Docklands, is now London’ s fastest-growing borough for new start-ups. The area saw a 33 % increase in microbusiness density across the past 12 months. Last year, the borough council announced £ 700,000 investment to support entrepreneurs.
Hackney, known for its culture of small, independent businesses, remains one of the top boroughs for microbusiness density overall, but its growth rate is below those of neighbouring boroughs, increasing 16 % year-on-year.
This slowing growth is consistent with soaring property prices, as data from the Office for National Statistics show the average private rental property in Hackney increased by 9.3 % year-onyear to £ 2,550 a month.
Embargo raises US $ 3.5 million to supercharge its loyalty and CRM platform for hospitality SMEs
UK hospitality tech business, Embargo, has raised US $ 3.5 million to accelerate its growth across Europe and beyond.
The investment round included participation from prominent investors in the UK, the United States and Europe, including Paul Statham( Founder of Condeco), Christo Georgiev( Founder of myPOS), the food industry-focused fund Hampton Finance( created by the Chantler family, Founders of Meadow Foods), Stephen Zinser, Carl Christian Reiner, as well as Oh Polly and its Founder, Mike Branney.
Founded by Frederick Szydlowski and Tsewang Wangkang, Embargo is one of the UK’ s leading CRM, loyalty and ordering platforms. It helps coffee shops, restaurants and bakeries boost customer retention and digital sales across every revenue channel( in-store, click & collect and delivery).
Embargo is currently used by nearly 3,000 venues, with a strong footprint in the UK, Poland and Western Europe. It has processed more than 13 million transactions and digital stamps.
Szydlowski said:“ Our mission is to level the playing field for hospitality SMEs keen to grow their revenues and scale – we do that by giving them access to the kind of tools typically reserved for global enterprises. This investment is not just a vote of confidence in our product and growth to date, but also in the scale of the opportunity ahead. With strong foundations, a growing international footprint and a clear product roadmap, we’ re perfectly positioned to become the go-to platform for hospitality businesses worldwide.”
Intelligent SME. tech
9