The number of venture capital investments made in the UK in the first three months of the year fell by 57%, compared with the same period in 2018.

Yet the amount of money invested in UK businesses in the first quarter stayed flat at £1.19bn, highlighting a preference among venture investors for later-stage deals.

“This is really about investors backing UK fintechs to take over the world,” said Tim Kay, director of innovative start-ups at KPMG. “There’s also the slightly negative take on it, which is that we’re seeing less early-stage deals.”

These are just some of the ways that 54 recent college grads we recently interviewed described their experience transitioning from college to the professional world. Despite being advised to hit the ground running, many young people we spoke with felt disoriented, confused, dissatisfied, and in many cases overwhelmed with the “real world.” In addition to impacting the young people themselves and their wellbeing, this intense and challenging experience affects companies, which spend time and money recruiting and training young people to join their ranks and immediately contribute to the organization.

Jonathan Gruber, Professor of Economics at MIT and the key architect of both Romneycare and Obamacare, and Simon Johnson, Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT and former chief economist to the IMF, discuss their new book: "Jumpstarting America: How Breakthrough Science Can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dream." RJ Gallo, Senior Portfolio Manager: Fixed Income at Federated, on why he’s not worried about the Fed balance sheet. Lionel Laurent, Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering finance and markets, on Theresa May dragging Europe into Brexit’s quicksand. John Butler, Senior telecom analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, on why T-Mobile’s proposed deal to buy Sprint stands on shaky ground. Hosted by Paul Sweeney and Lisa Abramowicz (Vince Cignarella filling in for Lisa Abramowicz.)

Price is one of the most crucial considerations in any business, and it’s important to charge what you’re worth. We asked these master salespeople, including Bulletproof founder Dave Asprey and Advisors in The Oracles, how to convince customers your price is worth it — especially when you charge a premium.

Image: Image credit: The Oracles

It is often perceived that entrepreneurship is for the young crowd. However, age shouldn’t be a determining factor that stops one from pursuing their dreams.

While it’s always good to start early, a study suggests that businesses are more likely to succeed as their founders’ age increase up until about age 40. From Gordon Bowker, who founded Starbucks when he was over 50, to Vera Wang, the editor at Vogue who decided to be a famous fashion designer at the age of 40, success cannot be determined by age. It has been observed that older entrepreneurs are more adept at building resilient businesses, which is especially crucial during times of modest economic growth.

As an alumnus of a top university, you might be invited to return to campus for Homecoming Weekend, donate money to a scholarship fund, or interview prospective students for the admissions department.

And now, you might also be asked to put $50,000 or $100,000 into a venture capital fund that will invest in companies founded by fellow alums. Alumni Ventures Group, a Manchester, N.H. company founded in 2014, runs more than a dozen funds with names like The Yard Ventures (Harvard), Green D Ventures (Dartmouth), and Castor Ventures (MIT).

Image: Alumni Ventures Group founder Michael Collins. - https://www.bostonglobe.com

Everyone seems to be innovating, but do the numbers stack up? Are we holding our own when it comes to the global innovation race?

North America is in that race, competing against other global regions. The others might play by different sets of rules, but all of us have an eye on the same prize — the opportunity to be the next dominant world leader in automobility.

Image: Colin Singh Dhillon

Social media are very popular these days, but I have no footprint of my own in any of them. As a teenager, I used to drive a tractor to the solitary hills of my village where I could be alone, reading books and writing notes to imaginary readers from whom I expected no response. In adulthood, I came to recognize the necessity of growing a protecting shell around me for the purpose of enabling free and original thought.

Five years after the introduction of the $1,000 genome, the sequencing field remains rife with chatter about pushing the cost much lower—not only to $100 (and why the world may not be ready for it), but as far down as $10.

Coming close to that $100 benchmark last year was Veritas Genetics. In November, the company offered a substantial 80% discount from its usual $999 price for its myGenome Standard whole genome sequencing service, including interpretation of results, by offering the genetic test at $199 to the first 1,000 customers nationwide (except New York state) who ordered for a limited time. Veritas planned an up-to-two-day period for the offer, but needed just 6 hours to draw the 1,000 customers.

As a long-time mentor and advisor to new business owners, I can attest to both the need for mentoring, and the satisfaction that comes from watching an aspiring but tentative entrepreneur grow into someone capable of changing the world. Business is not rocket science, and one-on-one guidance face-to-face, with a real project, trumps the classroom and mistakes every time.

Image: Image via Flickr by World Economic Forum 

Lyft has had a wild ride of late. The ride-hailing app company launched its IPO on Friday, March 29, with a valuation that rose from $24.3 billion to $26.6 billion and a share price of $87.24 — 21% above its IPO offer of $72. By the close of trading on Monday last week, amid skepticism from analysts, its share price had fallen to around $69, and its valuation plummeted to $19.8 billion. It has since inched up to about $70 with a market capitalization of $20 billion.

A report released Wednesday from the Toronto-based Brookfield Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship identifies 31 trends that will affect the future of work for Canadians, including deeper integration of work and life. (Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock)

Making someone an offer to join your company is always risky.

The truth is, the hiring process can uncover only so much. You're often basing your decision on a small sample of data that you collected during a few hours of speaking with them, sometimes not even in person.

Sure, maybe you had them take a test or complete an exercise, and you talked to three people who worked with them previously. But still, you never really know how it's going to work out until they come on board. And sometimes even the most promising hires turn out to be the wrong fit.

Image: Insider Inc.'s office.

The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) collaborates with JLABS to stimulate innovation and incubation of technologies that improve health security and response through companies focused on public health threats and emerging infectious diseases with residency at JLABS @ Washington, DC

After closing its initial round of funding last year, Houston Exponential's fund of funds, called the HX Venture Fund, has closed its first investment on March 29. Austin-based LiveOak Venture Partners received a $5 million investment from the fund.

The HX Venture Fund raised $30 million after launching in October of last year. The fund's goal is to invest in out-of-Houston venture funds in the hopes that they reinvest that money into Houston startups.

Image: LiveOak Venture Partners, an Austin-based firm, is the first recipient of Houston Exponential's fund of funds. Courtesy of LiveOak

If you’ve been following venture capital trends, what you expected to happen in the first quarter of 2019 did: More money is being invested in fewer deals, and women founders still are getting less of it than men.

Venture firms sent $32.6 billion into startups nationally during the first three months of 2019, the second largest amount for any quarter since at least 2006, according to data released overnight by PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association. But that large sum came from only 1,853 deals—the lowest deal count in about seven years. Companies raised only $9.66 billion through 1,648 deals during the fourth quarter of 2011, according to the report.

China is progressing more rapidly in innovation and advanced technology industries than the United States, according to a report published by Information Technology and Innovation Foundation today.

“In the span of about a decade, the Chinese economy has made dramatic progress in innovation relative to the United States,” Robert Atkinson, ITIF president and lead author of the report said in a statement. “Backed up by a powerful, unfair arsenal of state policies, China has evolved from an innovation-copier to a reverse innovator and now an innovator in its own right.”

Startups in the tech space are often known for their unique and original names. So we took to the streets of Austin during SXSW to see if people can guess what these tech startups do just by their names.

Innovation talks about the organization, but intrapreneurs are the people at an organization that make innovation possible. But how do you recognize them? How do you reward them? How do you give them permission to create and what are the seven steps towards intrapreneurialism as defined by Dr. Irena Yashin-Shaw, author of Leading in the Innovation Age?

Kat Cole, now the COO and president of North America for Focus Brands, was first made president of Cinnabon at 31 years old — and at the height of the 2007 recession.

"We literally had no humans to sell to," Cole said during her keynote at Workhuman 2019. It would be a difficult time to lead and innovate for anyone, especially for someone whose company was mostly located in malls and airports during a time when few people were visiting either. When banks won't lend and customers aren't coming in, "the only thing left is to connect with humanity," Cole said.

Image: https://www.hrdive.com