References to DEI on annual reports of FTSE 100 companies in the UK have declined, according to The Observer. Mentions of DEI, as well as the number of pages containing the phrase and revisions on it, fell by more than 16% compared to the annual reports for 85 companies in 2023 and 2024. While references to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and revisions on the term decreased by 22%, the data points to influence from the US after President Trump revoked a six-decade-old executive order that prohibited workplace discrimination by
Construction tech startup Litehaus has raised €1.46 million ($1.58 million) in a pre-seed round co-led by Cornerstone VC and Explorer Fund. Claster Group and angel investor Pascal Levy also participated in the pre-seed round. The fund will help simplify the home-building process in Europe. Husband-and-wife duo Thibault and Simi Launay set out to buy a house in Portugal nearly five years ago. However, they faced a 14-month delay, 20% budget overruns, and mismanagement involving over 10 subcontractors. “We realized if we’re struggling with this, so are millions of others,” Thibault told
Entrepreneur Nina Mohanty raised $2 million for Bloom Money, an app designed to help immigrant communities save money. The app, which was founded in 2021, allows immigrants based in the UK to save money collectively, a practice also known as “money circles.” Helping immigrants save money Mohanty worked with banks like Starling Bank, Klarna, and Mastercard and realized they don’t really understand how immigrant communities manage their money. “At a certain point, I just realized I got very frustrated wondering who was building for immigrant communities because I was building
Amazon has become a staple of modern life, with millions relying on it for everyday purchases. But few of us stop to consider how our packages magically reach our homes. What if I told you that a robot helped make it happen? On May 7th, Amazon invited POCIT on a sponsored trip to its “Delivering the Future” event in Dortmund, Germany. This is the first in a series of events that will give the media exclusive access to an Amazon innovation center. We were given a sneak peek into Amazon,
Wave Ventures, Europe’s largest Gen Z-run VC fund, has announced its third fund, which is €7 million ($7.8 million), tripling the size of its previous fund. The fund is supported by a diverse group of investors, such as Slack, Bolt, Skype, Supercell, Wolt, Silo AI, and Smartly.io, as well as European early-stage VCs, and family offices, according to a press release. The fund comes at a crucial time for early-stage investing across the Nordics and Baltics. The quick advancement of generative AI, no-code tools, and open-source technologies makes entrepreneurship more
Nearly half of the facial recognition in London last year occurred in areas with a higher proportion of Black residents than the city’s average, The Voice Newspaper reports. Researchers from a political group in London circulated figures highlighting live facial recognition (LFR), which was used 180 times in 2024. More than half of these occurrences were in places with a larger Black population than the city’s average. How many faces were scanned? Across London, around two million people had their faces scanned, but only 804 arrests were made, which is
The Trump administration is urging some large companies in the EU to comply with executive orders to end DEI programs. Government officials have allegedly sent letters to companies in France and the European Union with US government contracts, stating that they should ban DEI initiatives if they want to hold on to their contracts, according to The Financial Times. “Department of State contractors must certify that they do not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable anti-discrimination laws and agree that such certification is material for purposes of
CEO and co-founder Eric Collins of Impact X Capital Partners announced the final close of its latest fund. Illumen Capital, a BIPOC-led investment firm based in Oakland, California, and Basecamp Fund, a fund of funds investing in upcoming managers from London’s Phoenix Court, supported the fund, as stated by the Voice. This fund will help Impact X fulfill its commitment to tackling systemic barriers in venture capital by assisting underrepresented entrepreneurs in high-growth industries such as technology, healthcare, and targeted creative sectors. “This fund close is about more than capital—it’s
Cashflow management platform Lenkie has secured £49 million ($62 million) in Series A funding to transform how UK small businesses access capital. The funding round was led by a large US private credit fund focused on supporting lenders internationally. It also included a £4 million ($5 million) equity and a £45 million ($57 million) debt facility, according to a press release shared with POCIT. How does Lenkie support SMEs? Lenkie specializes in payables financing. Instead of waiting weeks or months for payments to process, Lenkie steps in to pay suppliers upfront, helping
British police forces are using AI crime prediction tools that disproportionately target Black and racialized communities, a new report from Amnesty International UK has revealed. According to Amnesty, nearly three-quarters of UK police forces rely on predictive policing, which uses past crime data to estimate where crimes might happen or who might commit them. The 120-page report, “Automated Racism – How Police Data and Algorithms Code Discrimination Into Policing,” argues that these predictive systems reinforce racial bias instead of improving public safety. “These systems have been built with discriminatory data
