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Two disputatious tribes are currently arguing about the outlook for UK tech: call them the Fullies and the Empties, depending on whether they view a glass as half-full or half-empty.
Fullies see massive potential for Britain as home to three of the top 10 global universities, the world’s third most developed start-up ecosystem after the US and China, and the biggest pool of venture capital in Europe (there are now more VC firms in London than Pret A Manger sandwich shops). A new generation of highly ambitious start-ups, ranging from the fintech pioneer Revolut, to the autonomous driving software company Wayve, to the biotech spinout from Google DeepMind, Isomorphic Labs, are primed to burst on to the global stage.
Empties, however, highlight the recent slowdown in start-up investment and the widening chasm between the UK and AI-infused Silicon Valley. The latest data from Dealroom found that British start-ups raised just £16.2bn in 2024, the lowest total since 2020. By contrast, investment in Silicon Valley start-ups surged by 71 per cent to £65bn last year. Little wonder that so many British start-ups look to move to — and list in — the US rather than stay at home.
There is disappointment in Britain’s start-up world that the Labour government has not run more energetically with an entrepreneurial agenda. When Labour was elected last year, hopes were high that the British government would finally break out of its low productivity trap and move beyond the Conservatives’ fixation with Brexit.
To be fair, the government has taken some encouraging steps to promote the AI sector. It has also been leaning on the pension fund industry to mobilise more growth capital. But these micro-improvements have been overshadowed by the macro-gloom resulting from the government’s decisions to increase taxes on jobs by raising employers’ national insurance contributions. Worse, the government has cut the tax relief offered to successful entrepreneurs and non-doms (including many angel investors). To many, it seems that Labour is still more obsessed with wealth redistribution than wealth generation. What is needed, according to many entrepreneurs, is a “vibe shift.”
One attempt to promote a more imaginative pro-growth agenda has come with the launch of the Centre for British Progress. (Launching a think-tank is a very British response to a political challenge but it may nevertheless be helpful if it can sharpen policy).
Kanishka Narayan, a Labour MP and a former VC investor, tells me: “There is no path to fairness that does not run through prosperity.” The country’s focus, he suggests, should be on ideas, talent and capital. How to build an R&D system that delivers tangible results? How to attract the best people in the world to work in Britain? How to mobilise more investment?
Here are three tentative answers to those questions. First, poach talented university researchers and entrepreneurs from the US, where President Donald Trump is busy trashing the country’s innovation machine. Many thousands of foreign tech workers in the US must now be anxiously checking their visa status. High on Britain’s target list should be experienced operational managers who know how to turn promising start-ups into global businesses. “Everything that is happening in the US is a huge opportunity for Europe,” says Check Warner, co-founding partner of the VC firm Ada Ventures. “This is the moment for us to attract incredible people to the ecosystem here.”
Second, Britain should develop closer connections with other second-tier tech powers to exploit the possibilities of AI. After the US and China, the next five most vibrant AI countries in the world are the UK, India, United Arab Emirates, France and South Korea, according to Stanford University’s rankings. All five countries could find common interest in creating a joint tech visa regime, pooling capital to invest in start-ups and pushing a sensible global regulatory framework. Not so much the Five Eyes intelligence community as the Five AIs.
Third, create new patriotic investment vehicles — growth capital ISAs — to steer more domestic retail savings into start-ups. Many pension fund managers appear too cautious (or hidebound by regulations) to invest even a fraction of their assets into VC funds. But the popularity of crowdfunding sites that help channel private savings into start-ups shows there is the appetite to back homegrown success stories. The government should incentivise the younger generation to do so.
The easiest way to ensure that Britain’s Fullies triumph over Empties is to pour more wine into the glass.