Latest edition: 23 September 2026London — published continuously since 2026Free forever
The Founder Gazette
Startup news, held to newspaper standards

Filed under: small business

9 stories

The archive, indexed. Every story carries its tags at the foot of the page.

Startup news

Corridor raises $25m seed for small-business health benefits

A four-person founding team says brokers skip small accounts because the commissions are thin and the work is not. Bain Capital Ventures has put money behind the argument.

257 · 22 September 2026
Startup news

Angle Health raises $200m at $2.7bn on 5,000 small-business clients

The insurance startup sells level-funded health plans to small employers, and says it is profitable. Here is what level-funding actually commits a founder to.

251 · 20 September 2026
Policy

Rates relief threshold could rise from £12,000 in 28 October Budget

Chancellor John Healey is reported to be weighing a higher small business rates relief threshold. Uprating the frozen £12,000 figure for inflation would take it to £17,096.

246 · 20 September 2026
Hiring tactics

When hiring fails, some founders buy the firm instead

One founder could not recruit the skills her business needed, so she acquired a company that already had them. The case for treating a small acquisition as a hiring decision.

223 · 11 September 2026
Policy

£10m hospitality grant opens to applications at end of September

The government has put £10m behind new pubs, cafes and restaurants, with £3m ring-fenced for a rural pubs charity. Grant sizes have not been published.

210 · 9 September 2026
Startup news

94 search funds launched in a year as MBAs buy their way to CEO

Business school graduates in the US are borrowing to buy established small firms and appoint themselves boss. One doubled her company in two years. Another closed his and filed for personal bankruptcy.

193 · 5 September 2026
Selling up

Inc: 65% of small firms carry a books problem that kills sales

Accounts built to satisfy a tax return are not accounts built to satisfy a buyer. A US report puts the share of small businesses with that gap at 65 per cent.

131 · 24 August 2026
Public procurement

Social value weighting doubles to 20% in £90bn procurement shake-up

From 1 January 2027, bidders for large central government contracts will be scored on the jobs and training they create, not on net zero or equality measures. Small suppliers get a higher threshold before the rules bite.

47 · 10 August 2026
Founder stories

Mailchimp sold for $12bn without raising a round

Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzius built an email tool as a side project inside their web design agency. Twenty years later Intuit bought it for about $12 billion.

30 · 9 August 2026