Crowdless

Designed by social enterprise developers Lanterne, Crowdless was born from work developing an app to help people navigate safely in conflict areas. “We were keen to see what we could do to help in the current circumstances, and we came up with Crowdless,” co-founder Alex Barnes told PC Pro in late May, “a way to help people avoid queues and crowds while socially distancing.”

The app allows users to check if a location, such as a grocery shop, is crowded or requires queuing, so they can choose to wait at home or go elsewhere. “We came up with the idea in mid-March, created the app in under four weeks, and we’ve now been live for five weeks with more than 60,000 downloads,” Barnes said.

Flatfair

Finding a new flat isn’t easy, nor is finding the money for the deposit while waiting for the last one to be repaid. Annoyed by the process, Franz Doerr quit a job at Deutsche Bank to found Flatfair. “We built a new payment technology system that allows renters to move in without paying a deposit,” Doerr said, adding that renters instead pay a one-off fee equal to a week’s rent. “Unlike other deposit alternatives, Flatfair is not an insurance product – instead, it is a payment technology company that allows renters to move with no deposit, only paying for what they break, much like they would when checking in and out of a hotel.”

Flatfair realised the pandemic could hit renters hard, so the team built its Resolve online portal for landlords and tenants to agree a payment plan for any missed rent during the crisis.

OakNorth

Loans are complicated, both for the side with the money and the side needing to borrow. OakNorth is a platform that uses analytics driven by machine learning to consider and monitor credit, helping to uncover who the OakNorth Bank can lend to. In particular, it targets the “missing middle” of smaller but growing businesses that make up the backbone of the UK economy but often find it difficult to borrow funds. “Since the bank’s launch in September 2015, it

“Trying to assess credit risk based on previous risk ratings doesn’t make sense as all previous correlations are broken”

has lent over £4 billion to several hundred businesses across the UK, helping with the creation of 13,000 new homes and 17,000 new jobs,” said co-founder, Rishi Khosla.

During the pandemic, OakNorth has created a Covid Vulnerability Rating (CVR) framework, designed to make it easier for banks to support businesses by giving them new ways to reassess credit risk, monitor loans and run risk analysis. “Given the unprecedented scale and dynamics of this crisis, trying to assess credit risk based on previous risk ratings doesn’t make sense as all previous correlations are broken,” said Khosla. “Businesses need liquidity to overcome the challenges being presented by Covid-19, which could trigger a recession and impact them for the next few years. They are looking to banks and lenders to support them in this crucial period.”

DarkTrace

Valued at more than a billion dollars, this UK security startup uses artificial intelligence to spot viruses and