Small Business (SMB) stories

ESET survey finds North American SMBs increasingly buying cyber cover, with insurers shaping controls and managed detection services after repeated breaches.

Slash lands USD $100 million Series C at USD $1.4 billion valuation as Ribbit backs its rapid expansion into broader business finance.

Atomgate's Renee Lovell says education, testing and partnerships are helping the South African MSSP turn SonicWall upgrades into measurable business gains.

Apple rolls out unified business hub in 200 markets as signs mount that local ads in Maps will debut across North America this summer.

Canva and Constant Contact add a one-click route from design to campaign, letting small firms and nonprofits publish across email and social media.

Maestra says brands are ditching fragmented marketing stacks as quarterly new ARR more than doubled plan, with inbound sales topping half of new business.

Emergent unveils Wingman, an always-on AI agent for email, scheduling and sales support as Australian firms seek to ease admin pressure.

Emergent's Wingman puts autonomous AI agents to work across email, calendars and chats, with human approval for higher-risk actions.

Rockwell's Plex wins Major Player status in six IDC MarketScape reports as AI-enabled ERP and finance tools gain ground among manufacturers.

Splashtop bets on AI-assisted patching and security alerts in a single console as it targets lean IT teams and MSPs with a new endpoint platform.

N-able widens Cove Data Protection with cloud-hosted Disaster Recovery as a Service for MSPs and IT teams facing cyberattacks and outages.

8x8 unveils AI Studio to let customer experience teams build agents with natural language, aiming to cut integration delays and costs.

Robotic Marketer adds AI direct mail to its marketing platform, aiming to help home services firms target buyers and coordinate print with digital campaigns.

Springboards unveils Flint, a novelty-focused AI model for marketers, as it refreshes its platform with new self-serve plans and wider access.

Actionstep and iManage team up to give midsize law firms a single workflow for matters, documents, governance and security.

Xero's Anthropic tie-up deepens finance software AI split as groups weigh integrated platforms against agent tools that work across multiple systems.

Gusto acquires Mosey in push to help smaller employers navigate mounting payroll, tax and registration rules across multiple US states.

PayPal brings payment links into Canva for 265 million users, letting creators, entrepreneurs and small firms sell from designs with QR codes and checkouts.

Cloudflare and GoDaddy team up to give site owners more control over AI crawlers while backing open standards to verify agent identity.

US small businesses turn to AI for data analysis, scheduling and stock control as most keep tech budgets steady or higher, survey finds.