Small Business (SMB) stories - Page 20

ClickMechanic named Growing Business of the Year after 40%+ annual growth and directing over GBP £100 million to UK independent mechanics.

UK founders warn unclear AI rules and weak digital trust threaten competitiveness, as many eye EU markets despite backing Britain to start up.

Australian start-up Restoke.ai launches its AI 'restaurant manager' in the US, promising to boost margins and automate back-of-house work.

Hitachi Vantara's VSP One platform is named a GigaOm primary storage Leader again, praised for AI-era cyber resilience and hybrid cloud support.

HCLSoftware has introduced a BigFix Secure Resilient Operations model with Agentic AI to unify IT and security on a single cloud-native platform.

Sage has been named a leader in IDC's 2025-2026 global ranking of AI-enabled professional services automation and ERP applications.

Shippo has launched MCP, an AI-powered platform that lets commerce-focused agents turn natural language shipping requests into live actions.

Proofpoint completes USD $1.8bn Hornetsecurity takeover, bolstering its European footprint and push into MSPs and smaller businesses.

Six UK cyber startups join a new state-backed scheme to defend critical infrastructure as severe attacks on key services jump 50% in a year.

Xero launches global beta of JAX-powered bank reconciliation, promising to auto-match over 80% of statement lines in real time.

Synology bundles three-year Acronis True Image Essentials licences with every Bee series device, adding full-system backup and ransomware defence.

Cyber-extortion incidents rose 44.5% to 19,000 victims, with small firms targeted most amid a fragmented, global cybercrime landscape, warns Orange Cyberdefense.

Hyvä has made its Magento front-end solution free and open source, aiming to help smaller retailers worldwide access advanced eCommerce technology.

QuickBooks Payments launches in the UK to help SMBs cut late invoices, aiming to tackle a GBP £2.5 billion annual payment delay problem.

Brevo has raised EUR €500 million, reaching unicorn status to boost AI capabilities and expand its US presence, targeting EUR €1 billion revenue by 2030.

SonicWall unveils the TZ80 firewall, delivering enterprise-level security and easy management for small and remote offices amid growing network complexity.

The Chancellor's Autumn Budget faces criticism over vague AI plans, insufficient cyber focus, unclear police tech funding, and gaps in SME support.

UK midmarket finance leaders overestimate AI adoption, with 83% claiming use, but only 19% of controllers agree, revealing a major perception gap.

Small businesses in the UK and Ireland face confusion and lack confidence in adopting AI, citing skills gaps and need for clearer guidance, research reveals.

Wasabi Technologies launches enhanced partner programme across EMEA, boosting cloud storage support for AI workloads with training and incentives for integrators.