Many start-ups face a funding gap when the founders’ capital is exhausted but the company is too small to justify a conventional first round of VC funding. Business angels may fill the gap. In the past, European tech entrepreneurs complained of the difficulties connecting with tech-savvy angel investors. This is now changing thanks to angel networks and web-based crowdfunding …
Today’s health-care industry is making increasing use of Web-based virtual agents and avatars, or computerized assistants, not only to perform clerical duties but also to dispense medical information…
The rich are different, and not just because they have more money. Wealthy individuals often have a wider sense of responsibility toward society and a growing number are now turning to socially responsible investing, which marries social good with financial returns. These investors realize that there is no contradiction between ethical and financial performance…
Industrial espionage has gone digital and found a powerful ally in social networks. The gadgets and gizmos of the spy movies have not gone away. But today’s corporate spies are more likely to trawl through Facebook pages and Twitter feeds for snippets of information they can build into valuable intelligence on a target organization…
Many businesses undervalue their intellectual property and downplay the risk of counterfeiting—until it is too late. The popular image of counterfeiting is a back street garage in China reverse engineering western products but more sophisticated counterfeiters go straight to the source and steal design files and software code from the manufacturer…
