Startup Weekly: £100,000 for UK SMEs, HealthTech Startup Awards & more

Here’s your weekly round up of news about startup competitions, awards, co-working spaces, accelerators and any other exciting things happening in the UK tech sector.

£100,000 for UK SMEs

Future Cities Catapult has announced £100,000 of funding for UK SMEs to demonstrate how user-focused design, data and digital innovation can improve the UK planning system.

The goal is to create a data-driven, digitally enabled planning system, and winning SMEs will receive between £10,000 and £20,000 to address challenges including data-informed planning, flexible planning, improved user experience of planning applications and increased citizen influence.

Launched back in October, the Future of Planning project is focused on building a picture of a faster, more transparent and equitable planning system for homes, cities and communities. As part of the programme, Future Cities Catapult will deliver two ‘innovator sessions’ with startups, SMEs and planning researchers to generate new ideas for change.

Stefan Webb, head of projects at Future Cities Catapult, commented: “We’re very excited to be launching the Future of Planning Open Call to support UK SMEs  to build a planning system that works even harder for planners, communities and developers.

“Here at Future Cities Catapult we actively engage high-growth businesses to drive innovation for urban development. If you have ideas on planning systems, how to increase certainty for developers, and how to enable communities to understand and engage with planning, then I encourage you to take part in our Open Call.”

The deadline for applications is 26th January 2017. Find out more here.

WeWork 2016

WeWork released its 2016 Year in Review, its global expansion reached 18 new cities across six new countries over the course of the year.

With over 110 locations open across the globe, WeWork has also doubled its membership figures, with 80,000 members using the firm’s spaces, community and services.

The launch of its Mission Possible initiative in 2016 also enabled WeWork to provide mission-driven companies with the workspace and support needed to grow. Currently available in 11 cities, Mission Impossible has welcomed over 1,100 new members.

HealthTech Startup Awards

The HealthTech Startup Awards, in association with Virgin Limited Edition, crowned on-demand senior care platform Cera as its ‘HealthTech Startup of the Year’.

Selected by a panel of judges from the likes of NHS Digital and Octopus Health Investments, the awards recognised startups that are innovating in the healthcare space.

Cera, which closed a £1.3m funding round last month, enables the elderly or their loved ones to book care on-demand and keep up-to-date with their care records.

Dr Ben Maruthappu, co-founder of Cera, commented: “This is an exciting achievement for the Cera team and we’re delighted that our hard work has been recognised in this way. Modernisation through technology has the ability transform a sector that is currently disjointed and overcrowded, we’ve spent this year trying to make care more transparent, reliable and responsive.”

Marek Sacha, co-founder and CEO of Cera, added: “Through technology and more streamlined logistics, we can transform the service patients receive, use artificial intelligence to advise them on their conditions, while valuing carers and the great work they do. Winning this award is a great reflection of how far we’ve come in so little time, and I’m excited to see what 2017 brings.”

That’s all for this week! Check out upcoming startup events on our events page.