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Diversity VC says certified firms boost team diversity

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Diversity VC has published a report marking its tenth year in venture capital, saying firms that use its certification standard have made stronger gains in team diversity than the wider market.

Titled The Infrastructure of Change: What 10 Years Taught Us About Driving Impact in Venture Capital, the report reviews the non-profit’s work over the past decade and sets out recommendations for the sector. More than 100 venture capital firms representing USD $44 billion in assets under management are now certified through the Diversity VC Standard, it says.

According to the report, certified firms increased gender representation across teams by more than 10 percentage points after certification. It also found higher ethnic representation across teams, including a doubling of Black representation at senior levels.

These findings come alongside broader shifts in the UK venture market. Women on UK venture capital investment teams rose from 18% in 2017 to 31% in 2025, while the share of UK firms with no women on investment teams fell from 48% to 21%.

Structured processes

Diversity VC said the strongest evidence of change came from firms that adopted structured processes rather than relying on informal commitments. It argues that diversity work in venture capital has moved from the margins towards the mainstream of how some funds are organised and assessed.

The review also points to the role of investors and public bodies in driving those changes. It cites activity by institutional backers, including the British Business Bank and UK Private Capital, as evidence that inclusion is becoming part of fund selection, research and market practice.

Programme impact

One section focuses on Future VC, a programme designed to widen routes into the sector. According to Diversity VC, 97% of Future VC alumni are now in full-time venture capital or wider investment ecosystem roles.

The organisation has also expanded its own output during the period covered by the report. Since launch, it has run 447 workshops and published 19 reports and six toolkits, alongside programmes including Future VC, the Career Development Program, the Diversity VC Standard and the Diversity Data Alliance.

Long cycle

Meghan Stevenson Krausz, Chief Executive Officer, Diversity VC, said, “Over the past decade, there has been measurable progress in how venture capital understands and approaches diversity. Representation has improved, awareness has grown, and expectations have shifted. And yet, when viewed through the most visible metrics, progress can still appear slow and uneven. It would be easy to read this as a lack of change. But that interpretation misses what is actually happening beneath the surface.

Part of this disconnect comes from the nature of venture capital itself as a long-cycle asset class. The outcomes we most often measure – who gets funded, who holds power – are, by definition, lagging indicators that reflect decisions made years earlier. They tell us where the system has been, not where it is going.

Over the past decade, Diversity VC and Extend Ventures focused on something different: not just measuring outcomes, but changing the conditions that produce them. Many diversity efforts begin with culture, with a shared belief that things should be fairer, more inclusive and more representative. But without structure, culture remains fragile.

Funds that adopt structured frameworks like The Standard are moving faster than their peers. Limited partners and development finance institutions are beginning to embed diversity into capital allocation decisions. Policymakers are shifting from aspiration to transparency. And for the first time, there are credible pathways into venture capital for people who would previously never have seen the industry as accessible. These are signals that the system is beginning to shift. If the first decade of this work was about making the invisible visible, the next will be about making change unavoidable.”

Next steps

The report argues that venture capital should apply diversification principles to the people making investment decisions, not just to sectors, stages and geographies in portfolios. It says narrow networks and shared backgrounds can shape pattern recognition in early-stage investing and cause firms to miss investment opportunities.

The same argument extends to limited partners, which decide which funds to back and which managers build track records. Progress will remain uneven unless diversity and inclusion are treated as a core part of how those investors assess funds, the report argues.

Diversity VC also calls for more formal policies within firms. It says diversity should be built into hiring, investment decision-making, portfolio support and performance tracking, rather than treated as a separate initiative.

The report sets out a series of measures it says are already established elsewhere in financial services. These include equalised parental leave, continued pension contributions and carried interest vesting during leave, flexible working arrangements, broader hiring pipelines beyond investment banking, and development programmes for mid-level talent from underrepresented backgrounds.

Its central argument is that venture capital has become better at gathering diversity data, but weaker at acting on it. The next phase, it says, should focus on using those figures to shape how firms are built and how careers progress within them.

More than three-quarters of respondents in a recent survey said Diversity VC had contributed significantly or moderately to making the venture ecosystem more inclusive, according to the report.



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Grove and Wantage fun day boosts cash for community groups

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Money raised from the event will go towards helping local people in the OX12 area (Image: Ed Nix)

The free summer extravaganza, held on Saturday, June 13, was jointly organised by Grove Rugby Football Club, the Ray Collins Trust and Grove Scouts, with more than 40 stalls raising money for charities and community causes in Wantage and Grove.

Bands, soloists and choirs performed from midday (Image: Ed Nix)

From midday, bands, choirs and soloists performed as children tucked into a free picnic and parents enjoyed hot barbecue food served by Scouts.

READ MORE: Award-winning RHS Chelsea Flower Show designer from Oxfordshire gets MBE

A giant funfair offered classic attractions such as hook-a-duck, alongside bird of prey displays.

There was lots of dancing and singing at the fun day (Image: Ed Nix)

American Dance School led line dancing and showcases, with further demonstrations in rugby and martial arts.

Live music played from 12pm to 11pm (Image: Ed Nix)

Dog owners could also enter their pets into a show run by National Animal Welfare Trust Berkshire and sponsored by Larkmead Vets.





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Akamai launches AI agent traffic security framework

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Akamai has introduced a security framework to manage AI agent traffic, aimed at businesses that need to verify whether automated requests should be allowed to act.

Built into its Bot & Agent Control products, the framework combines identity checks, traffic monitoring and enforcement at the network edge. It targets merchants, publishers and other organisations facing a rise in automated requests from AI agents acting on users’ behalf.

The launch reflects a broader industry focus on whether an AI agent can be tied to an authorised human user and whether its behaviour can be trusted. That question has become more urgent as agents begin to shop, retrieve content and carry out tasks previously completed directly by people in browsers or apps.

Akamai’s model is built around six areas: verified identity, user-linked authentication, trust analysis, edge enforcement, content monetisation and traffic visibility. It is working with several partners to connect those elements.

One part of the framework focuses on agent identity in commercial transactions. Akamai is working with Visa on the Trusted Agent Protocol and with Skyfire and Experian on the Know Your Agent framework, intended to let agents declare identity, origin and intent while linking them to the platforms they use and the users they represent.

The approach is designed to help businesses distinguish between a legitimate AI shopping assistant and a malicious bot that may appear similar when it first connects to a website. It also aims to provide an audit trail for transactions carried out by software acting for a person.

Visa said agent identity will be a basic requirement if automated commerce is to expand.

“Without trusted identity and explicit permissioning, AI agents cannot participate in commerce at scale,” said Rubail Birwadker, Senior Vice President, Head of Growth Products and Partnerships, Visa. “Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol provides the identity layer that defines how agents are authenticated, authorized, and trusted at the transaction level so businesses and consumers can transact with confidence.”

Experian described the issue as one of transparency and accountability in AI-led interactions.

“AI agents are quickly becoming part of digital commerce, but trust will determine how far and how fast adoption grows,” said Kathleen Peters, Chief Innovation Officer at Experian. “With the Experian Agent Trust framework, we are helping businesses bring more transparency and accountability to AI-driven interactions by verifying identities, assessing risk, and strengthening confidence in every transaction. Our collaboration with Akamai and other ecosystem leaders reflects the industry’s shared commitment to building a secure foundation for agentic commerce that consumers and businesses can trust in real time.”

Skyfire, which is also involved in the identity effort, said commercial use of agents depends on a recognised trust layer.

“AI agents can’t participate in the economy without trusted identity and the ability to transact,” said Amir Sarhangi, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Skyfire. “Skyfire provides that foundation – enabling agents to authenticate, operate within policy, and access global payment rails. With Akamai, we’re bringing that trust layer to the edge, so enterprises can securely enable trusted agents without re-architecting their existing systems.”

Identity checks

Another element covers the hand-off between a human user and an AI agent. Integrations with identity providers including Auth0 and Ping Identity allow organisations to apply existing checks such as behavioural analysis and multi-factor authentication to the agents their customers use.

The idea is that a company should not rely only on a session or browser signal when an agent is involved. Instead, it should be able to assess who the agent represents, what it is permitted to do and whether its actions match the user’s established profile.

“AI agents introduce a new trust challenge because session-based trust alone is no longer sufficient. Organisations need to understand who they represent, what agents are allowed to do, and how their actions are governed in real time,” said Loren Russon, Vice President, Product Management, Ping Identity. “By combining Ping’s Runtime Identity capabilities with Akamai’s edge enforcement and visibility, enterprises can extend identity and access controls to AI-driven interactions with stronger accountability and oversight.”

Akamai said the framework also moves beyond a simple allow-or-block approach. Its trust analysis layer is intended to assess interactions across browsers, bots and agents on a spectrum, helping organisations decide which requests support commercial goals and which may signal fraud, abuse or operational risk.

Publisher model

For publishers and content owners, the system also addresses how AI agents access and pay for web content. Partnerships with TollBit and Skyfire support models in which access can be negotiated and charged on a pay-per-request basis.

That could give media groups and other content businesses a way to distinguish between ordinary visitors, beneficial agents and scraping activity, while also setting commercial terms for machine-driven access to material on their sites.

The framework is tied to Akamai’s traffic analysis tools, including TrafficPeak, which can provide a view of how human users, useful AI agents and malicious bots interact with websites over time. Security teams and business managers can then use that data to adjust access rules and revenue strategies.

At the infrastructure level, enforcement happens at the edge of Akamai’s distributed network, allowing decisions on incoming requests to be made quickly without shifting checks to a central system.

Patrick Sullivan, Vice President, Chief Technology Officer of Security Strategy, Akamai, said the goal is to give businesses a way to tie identity to decision-making as automated interactions increase.

“AI agents are replacing clicks, acting and handling commerce for us. For that to work, businesses need to recognize not just the agent, but who is behind it and what it’s trying to do,” said Sullivan. “We’ve built this so that identity informs visibility, visibility drives trust, and trust powers the decisions that let companies safely grow and monetize these new AI interactions. We’re giving businesses the confidence to open their doors to AI without compromising security.”



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UK pest control company enters administration after three years

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LPPC Environmental Ltd, which operates as Pest Control Aberdeenshire, provides environmentally friendly pest and bird control services for households and businesses across the UK.

The company was founded in April 2023 and has bases in Aberdeen and Bolton.



The Pest Control Aberdeenshire website reads: “We’re passionate about the environment and providing pest control solutions that help wildlife and humans co-exist.

“We’re dedicated to deterring pests naturally, using traditional pest control methods such as hawking and falconry.

“Our pest control methods are both effective and non-toxic, and we always try to use a natural solution to deal with vermin where possible.”

LPPC Environmental Ltd falls into administration

After just three years in business, LPPC Environmental Ltd looks set to shut down after falling into administration.

A petition to wind up the company was presented to the Aberdeen Sheriff Court back in March, according to The Gazette.

The petition requested permission for the company to be “wound up by the Court and to appoint a liquidator”.

An administration order was granted on May 8, while Kevin Mapstone of BTG Begbies Traynor was appointed administrator on June 5.

Other UK companies that have closed or entered administration/liquidation in 2026

It has been a tough year for the UK high street, with several other retailers entering administration and others announcing widespread store closures.

Major high street brands LK Bennett and Claire’s both closed all their stores in April, having previously fallen into administration.



UK fashion retailers Leading Labels and Quiz are also set to close their remaining stores after falling into liquidation.

Other retailers have been forced to close stores this year, including:

Four UK travel companies have closed in 2026:

Luxury UK holiday company Salamander Voyages also shut down back in April after entering administration.



Meanwhile, four UK airlines have fallen into administration or liquidation:

UK delivery company Yodel is set to be phased out over the coming months after being acquired by InPost.

It’s also been reported that Morrisons is looking to sell some of its in-store pharmacies as it continues to cut costs.

It’s not been all bad news for the UK high street, with several major brands announcing new store openings for 2026, including Aldi, M&S, and Superdrug.

Plus-size clothing brand Evans has also returned to the UK high street in 2026 after closing all its stores and concessions in December 2020.

Have you used Pest Control Aberdeenshire before? Let us know in the poll above or in the comments below.





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