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Growing world-class scaleup hubs through global lessons

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Dean Hopkins, CEO at OneEleven, discusses how global scaleup hubs can learn from each other in order to build outstanding scaleups.

Any time a new global city or region emerges as a technology or innovation hub, the inevitable comparisons to Silicon Valley begin. New York as Silicon Alley, Israel as Silicon Wadi, and Toronto was recently dubbed Maple Valley to much scorn.

But it’s time for globally emergent innovation hubs to look beyond Silicon Valley as they work to build scaleup success, with each location learning from the specific lessons of one another to help all players in the community succeed.

Outside the original Valley, collaboration, diversity and connections into other ecosystems are major strategic advantages for any hub that wants to scale faster – more connections, more funding, more talent, more resources and more stories to share to teach others.

Just look at Stockholm: With a population of only one million, it has developed more Unicorns per capita than any other innovation ecosystem outside Silicon Valley. Among other things, connecting into other major hubs helped propel growth and seed opportunity.

With OneEleven now established in the UK, we’re applying lessons from two leading hubs — London and Toronto — to guide our strategy and propel our value. Both cities embody hard-earned scaleup lessons, like specialization, building ecosystem partnerships and leveraging the power of diverse leadership, that we believe are key to ecosystem and company success.

Focus on growing the greatest verticals

London has built an ecosystem around its strengths.

The city is by far the leading source of fintech innovation worldwide: it has the greatest concentration of fintechs and the largest workforce in fintechit dwarfs everywhere else even New York. In the first quarter of 2017, London saw $421 million invested in its fintech industry pushing New York out of the top spot for fintech investment. The City of London has worked with a variety of institutions to rally behind this emphasis on fintech, bringing together government, educational institutions and various sources of funding to embrace the fintech ethos.

The lesson to be learned from London’s focus on fintech is that innovation hubs need to concentrate their efforts in certain sectors where they already stand out as a global leader.

In Toronto, we’re starting to see a lot going on in the deep AI tech space, through the Vector Institute and other organizations building on a research base of over 30 years by Dr. Geoffrey Hinton and his colleagues. Of course, there’s room for improvement. While research labs are popping up regularly, with big partners involved, Toronto and Canada are lagging when it comes to patents and application of AI tech. As we build up this sector of our innovation ecosystem, we have to develop a well-rounded AI industry that includes a robust IP regime to keep AI innovation in Canada.

Diversity in leadership

Both London and Toronto also boast the highest demographic diversity of global cities, and demonstrate how valuable entrepreneurial leadership from all over the world can be. Forty percent of London residents classifying themselves as other than white according to a 2011 census, and that diversity powers the tech and innovation ecosystem in the city. Recent research shows that immigrants and people from minority backgrounds in the UK are twice as likely to be early-stage entrepreneurs.

Toronto is similarly diverse in its population, and talent is one of the reasons the city is seeing global recognition as an innovation hub.

Canada’s fast-track visa program prioritizes highly skilled workers and entrepreneurs  and was created as a talent magnet for Toronto especially – last year MaRS released survey results showing 45 percent of Toronto tech companies made international hires in 2017 alone, and 35 percent of respondents used the visas to hire.

Other scaleup hubs could build valuable leadership and collaboration from a similar approach to entrepreneurship: one which looks to bring in more diverse, global talent on the leadership side, as well as the wider talent side. Scaleup communities have to be competitive on the world stage by inspiring people from all over the world to come and build their businesses there, as a lack of immigration and global perspective can starve an ecosystem of oxygen.

Culture of collaboration

We’re very fortunate in Toronto to have a culture of collaboration that starts at the earliest stages of entrepreneurship, and continues throughout company growth. There’s a strong expectation that you will work together, and for that reason, forming a community in Toronto is almost a matter of course.

Hubs like MaRS, 111 and the DMZ, for example, have opened up prime real estate to provide space for young companies to grow and to foster their developing businesses. Canadians have proven they are wired differently and Toronto’s collaborative and inclusive culture is one of its strongest competitive advantages.

In London, there’s a hyper-competitive environment for businesses, and perhaps not as naturally collaborative of an environment. That might just be because the city has only just recently seen an effort made to boost that kind collaboration from organizations like the Scaleup Institute and Tech London Advocates.

But collaboration between government, academia and business is one of the things that makes London a world-class scaleup hub.

Collaboration between groups tends to be verticalized in the UK, with TheCityUK being a prime example; the industry-led body that represents UK-based financial and professional services companies showed that collaboration between financial institutions and fintech companies can speed up the process of creating innovative products and services. By looking at IP, regulatory compliance, data protection and privacy, TheCityUK provided seven possible models for collaboration between banks and fintech companies.

Big scaleup success stories can also influence the effort to increase collaboration in scaleup hubs — and London has some amazing stories to tell.

Renewable energy company Bulb grew from 85,000 customers to 870,000 in the space of 12 months, becoming one of the fastest-growing scaleups in the UK. The company’s founders Hayden Wood and Amit Gudka are immensely proud of their place in London’s ecosystem. This is how how big names in a scaleup hub can advocate for an entire community.

For our part at OneEleven, we’ll work hard to build up that kind of collaborative community and collective effort as we continue to expand into London’s innovation ecosystem. We want to ensure that the success of these companies continues past their early stage, into growth and on into the billion-dollar club. The middle chapter is currently not being written in London — despite early stage support for companies and big success stories — and that’s what 111 is here to address.

Global scale through collaboration

Innovation hubs around the world can also work together to take the friction out of companies expanding between markets. Furthermore, cooperating markets can increase their competitiveness by promoting an exchange of innovative business practices, and reap the economic benefits that scaleups can bring to innovation ecosystems.

London and Toronto are a good example of global collaboration, as they the two cities have begun to explore greater cooperation when it comes to facilitating expansion between hubs.

The Mayor of London’s promotional agency London & Partners has opened an office in Toronto to better encourage Canadian businesses seeking to expand to consider London for their next destination, and to support UK businesses seeking expansion into Canada’s market. Over the last decade, the organization says 44 London businesses have expanded into Toronto and 118 Canadian businesses have set up shop in London during that same period.

This is only the beginning when it comes to proper cooperation between these two cities: government, academia and innovation hubs should work together to encourage scaleups in their efforts to expand between international markets.

Greater than the global sum of our parts

At OneEleven, it seems to us that the unique evolution, and now collaboration, between the London and Toronto ecosystems signals the rise of a global network of innovation that is in its early stages.  Such a global network, powered by the diversity of each market, promises to have a dramatic effect on the ability for scaling companies to access talent, customers, investors and partners much more easily.  We are excited to be a part of the rise of this globally connected and collaborative ecosystem that builds on what was started in Silicon Valley, but brings innovation into the more global and highly connected digital present.

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How businesses can protect themselves from the rising threat of deepfakes

Dive into the world of deepfakes and explore the risks, strategies and insights to fortify your organization’s defences

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In Billy Joel’s latest video for the just-released song Turn the Lights Back On, it features him in several deepfakes, singing the tune as himself, but decades younger. The technology has advanced to the extent that it’s difficult to distinguish between that of a fake 30-year-old Joel, and the real 75-year-old today.

This is where tech is being used for good. But when it’s used with bad intent, it can spell disaster. In mid-February, a report showed a clerk at a Hong Kong multinational who was hoodwinked by a deepfake impersonating senior executives in a video, resulting in a $35 million theft.

Deepfake technology, a form of artificial intelligence (AI), is capable of creating highly realistic fake videos, images, or audio recordings. In just a few years, these digital manipulations have become so sophisticated that they can convincingly depict people saying or doing things that they never actually did. In little time, the tech will become readily available to the layperson, who’ll require few programming skills.

Legislators are taking note

In the US, the Federal Trade Commission proposed a ban on those who impersonate others using deepfakes — the greatest concern being how it can be used to fool consumers. The Feb. 16 ban further noted that an increasing number of complaints have been filed from “impersonation-based fraud.”

A Financial Post article outlined that Ontario’s information and privacy commissioner, Patricia Kosseim, says she feels “a sense of urgency” to act on artificial intelligence as the technology improves. “Malicious actors have found ways to synthetically mimic executive’s voices down to their exact tone and accent, duping employees into thinking their boss is asking them to transfer funds to a perpetrator’s account,” the report said. Ontario’s Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence Framework, for which she consults, aims to set guides on the public sector use of AI.

In a recent Microsoft blog, the company stated their plan is to work with the tech industry and government to foster a safer digital ecosystem and tackle the challenges posed by AI abuse collectively. The company also said it’s already taking preventative steps, such as “ongoing red team analysis, preemptive classifiers, the blocking of abusive prompts, automated testing, and rapid bans of users who abuse the system” as well as using watermarks and metadata.

That prevention will also include enhancing public understanding of the risks associated with deepfakes and how to distinguish between legitimate and manipulated content.

Cybercriminals are also using deepfakes to apply for remote jobs. The scam starts by posting fake job listings to collect information from the candidates, then uses deepfake video technology during remote interviews to steal data or unleash ransomware. More than 16,000 people reported that they were victims of this scam to the FBI in 2020. In the US, this kind of fraud has resulted in a loss of more than $3 billion USD. Where possible, they recommend job interviews should be in person to avoid these threats.

Catching fakes in the workplace

There are detector programs, but they’re not flawless. 

When engineers at the Canadian company Dessa first tested a deepfake detector that was built using Google’s synthetic videos, they found it failed more than 40% of the time. The Seattle Times noted that the problem in question was eventually fixed, and it comes down to the fact that “a detector is only as good as the data used to train it.” But, because the tech is advancing so rapidly, detection will require constant reinvention.

There are other detection services, often tracing blood flow in the face, or errant eye movements, but these might lose steam once the hackers figure out what sends up red flags.

“As deepfake technology becomes more widespread and accessible, it will become increasingly difficult to trust the authenticity of digital content,” noted Javed Khan, owner of Ontario-based marketing firm EMpression. He said a focus of the business is to monitor upcoming trends in tech and share the ideas in a simple way to entrepreneurs and small business owners.

To preempt deepfake problems in the workplace, he recommended regular training sessions for employees. A good starting point, he said, would be to test them on MIT’s eight ways the layperson can try to discern a deepfake on their own, ranging from unusual blinking, smooth skin, and lighting.

Businesses should proactively communicate through newsletters, social media posts, industry forums, and workshops, about the risks associated with deepfake manipulation, he told DX Journal, to “stay updated on emerging threats and best practices.”

To keep ahead of any possible attacks, he said companies should establish protocols for “responding swiftly” to potential deepfake attacks, including issuing public statements or corrective actions.

How can a deepfake attack impact business?

The potential to malign a company’s reputation with a single deepfake should not be underestimated.

“Deepfakes could be racist. It could be sexist. It doesn’t matter — by the time it gets known that it’s fake, the damage could be already done. And this is the problem,” said Alan Smithson, co-founder of Mississauga-based MetaVRse and investor at Your Director AI.

“Building a brand is hard, and then it can be destroyed in a second,” Smithson told DX Journal. “The technology is getting so good, so cheap, so fast, that the power of this is in everybody’s hands now.”

One of the possible solutions is for businesses to have a code word when communicating over video as a way to determine who’s real and who’s not. But Smithson cautioned that the word shouldn’t be shared around cell phones or computers because “we don’t know what devices are listening to us.”

He said governments and companies will need to employ blockchain or watermarks to identify fraudulent messages. “Otherwise, this is gonna get crazy,” he added, noting that Sora — the new AI text to video program — is “mind-blowingly good” and in another two years could be “indistinguishable from anything we create as humans.”

“Maybe the governments will step in and punish them harshly enough that it will just be so unreasonable to use these technologies for bad,” he continued. And yet, he lamented that many foreign actors in enemy countries would not be deterred by one country’s law. It’s one downside he said will always be a sticking point.

It would appear that for now, two defence mechanisms are the saving grace to the growing threat posed by deepfakes: legal and regulatory responses, and continuous vigilance and adaptation to mitigate risks. The question remains, however, whether safety will keep up with the speed of innovation.

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Small banks emerge as the top source for small business financing

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Findbusinesses4sale used the Fed's Small Business Credit Survey data to compare approval rates among small business financing options.
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When it comes to borrowing money, small businesses are most likely to apply at large banks. But they often find success with their counterparts in the finance world: small banks.

Small banks—or those with less than $10 billion in total assets—comprise most of the banks in the U.S., much like small businesses account for nearly all U.S. businesses. More than 80% of small businesses that applied for financing at small banks were at least partially approved in 2022, according to data from the Fed’s most recent survey of small business employers. However, only 30% of small businesses applied at small banks when they sought financing.

About 2 in 5 small business employers applied for some traditional financing in 2022. Most needed the money to meet operating expenses, while a little over half sought cash to expand their operations.

Findbusinesses4sale used the Fed’s Small Business Credit Survey data to compare approval rates among small business financing sources, taking a closer look at their differences. Approval rates are based on applications for loans, credit, and cash advances at the various institution types. The Fed report was released in March 2023 based on a 2022 survey of nearly 8,000 small businesses with employees.


A bar chart shows the share of small business applicants at least partially approved for loan requests, separated by the type of source applied to.

Findbusinesses4sale

Small banks surpass online lenders, finance companies in approval rates for small business applicants

Also known as community banks, small banks are well-equipped to lend to small businesses because of their intimate knowledge of local economies. Small businesses are often young, with short histories, small operations, little collateral, and unproven financial success. These factors can make it difficult for founders to qualify for credit and loans—they’re simply a riskier investment for a funder to take on.

Small banks’ decision-makers live within the same areas where they grant loans, and they have insight into how certain businesses could fare within their neighborhoods. That makes it easier for them to analyze the risk of lending to small businesses and, in turn, decide whether to approve their applications. At least 3 in 5 (61%) applicants considered to be a medium or high credit risk were approved for financing at small banks; at large banks, not even half (45%) of these riskier applicants were approved.

By operating across smaller locales, community bank operators also have the opportunity to forge stronger relationships with business founders. The Fed survey shows that about 2 in 3 small businesses that applied for financing with these banks did so because of an existing relationship. Many of these relationships were forged in the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic, when community banks came through for small businesses with relief funds, including more intensive support in understanding and completing complex applications.

Small firms applying to other sources, such as online lenders and finance companies, are most often motivated by making quick decisions and perceiving that they have a higher chance of being approved. That was the case five years ago, but approval rates for both sources lagged behind small banks in 2022. Indeed, approval rates at both have fallen significantly since 2019, while approvals at small banks have grown.

Both online lenders and finance companies still approve slightly higher shares of applicants with medium to high credit risks compared to small banks, but only by a few percentage points. At the same time, many more borrowers reported dissatisfaction and challenges working with these lenders, including high interest rates and unfavorable repayment terms.

On the other hand, the vast majority of borrowers from small banks were happy with their experience—much more than those who borrowed from any other type of lender.

Story editing by Ashleigh Graf. Copy editing by Paris Close. Photo selection by Ania Antecka.

This story originally appeared on Findbusinesses4sale and was produced and
distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.

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The new reality of how VR can change how we work

It’s not just for gaming — from saving lives to training remote staff, here’s how virtual reality is changing the game for businesses

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Until a few weeks ago, you might have thought that “virtual reality” and its cousin “augmented reality” were fads that had come and gone. At the peak of the last frenzy around the technology, the company formerly known as Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021, as a sign of how determined founder Mark Zuckerberg was to create a VR “metaverse,” complete with cartoon avatars (who for some reason had no legs — they’ve got legs now, but there are some restrictions on how they work).

Meta has since spent more than $36 billion on metaverse research and development, but so far has relatively little to show for it. Meta has sold about 20 million of its Quest VR headsets so far, but according to some reports, not many people are spending a lot of time in the metaverse. And a lack of legs for your avatar probably isn’t the main reason. No doubt many were wondering: What are we supposed to be doing in here?

The evolution of virtual reality

Things changed fairly dramatically in June, however, when Apple demoed its Vision Pro headset, and then in early February when they were finally available for sale. At $3,499 US, the device is definitely not for the average consumer, but using it has changed the way some think about virtual reality, or the “metaverse,” or whatever we choose to call it.

Some of the enhancements that Apple has come up with for the VR headset experience have convinced Vision Pro true believers that we are either at or close to the same kind of inflection point that we saw after the release of the original iPhone in 2007.Others, however, aren’t so sure we are there yet.

The metaverse sounds like a place where you bump into giant dinosaur avatars or play virtual tennis, but ‘spatial computing’ puts the focus on using a VR headset to enhance what users already do on their computers. Some users generate multiple virtual screens that hang in the air in front of them, allowing them to walk around their homes or offices and always have their virtual desktop in front of them.

VR fans are excited about the prospect of watching a movie on what looks like a 100-foot-wide TV screen hanging in the air in front of them, or playing a video game. But what about work-related uses of a headset like the Vision Pro? 

Innovating health care with VR technology

One of the most obvious applications is in medicine, where doctors are already using remote viewing software to perform checkups or even operations. At Cambridge University, game designers and cancer researchers have teamed up to make it easier to see cancer cells and distinguish between different kinds.

Heads-up displays and other similar kinds of technology are already in use in aerospace engineering and other fields, because they allow workers to see a wiring diagram or schematic while working to repair it. VR headsets could make such tasks even easier, by making those diagrams or schematics even larger, and superimposing them on the real thing. The same kind of process could work for digital scans of a patient during an operation.

Using virtual reality, patients and doctors could also do remote consultations more easily, allowing patients to describe visually what is happening with them, and giving health professionals the ability to offer tips and direct recommendations in a visual way. 

This would not only help with providing care to people who live in remote areas, but could also help when there is a language barrier between doctor and patient. 

Impacting industry worldwide

One technology consulting firm writes that using a Vision Pro or other VR headset to streamline assembly and quality control in maintenance tasks. Overlaying diagrams, 3D models, and other digital information onto an object in real time could enable “more efficient and error-free assembly processes,” by providing visual cues, step-by-step guidance, and real-time feedback. 

In addition to these kinds of uses, virtual reality could also be used for remote onboarding for new staff in a variety of different roles, by allowing them to move around and practice training tasks in a virtual environment.

Some technology watchers believe that the retail industry could be transformed by virtual reality as well. Millions of consumers have become used to buying online, but some categories such as clothing and furniture have lagged, in part because it is difficult to tell what a piece of clothing might look like once you are wearing it, or what that chair will look like in your home. But VR promises the kind of immersive experience where that becomes possible.

While many consumers may see this technology only as an avenue for gaming and entertainment, it’s already being leveraged by businesses in manufacturing, health care and workforce development. Even in 2020, 91 per cent of businesses surveyed by TechRepublic either used or planned to adopt VR or AR technology — and as these technological advances continue, adoption is likely to keep ramping up.

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