Entrepreneurs have stated time and time again that the capital of London has flourished even though there has only been a small level of support from Downing Street. One of the very first Bitcoin meetings took place on Brick Lane in London. This happened in 2012 and at the time, London was already known for dealing a lot with finance. If London had not exploded in the way that it has recently then it wouldn’t have access to the community it does now.
The UK Tech Scene
Of course, when you look at Tej Kohli, a London based investor, you will see that he has always focused on the tech scene. He has done everything he can to make sure that the industry is given the boost it needs to really thrive and this has helped him to stand out from the rest of the investors out there. According to the Tech Nation group, it would seem that the UK has now created way more unicorns than any other country, when you remove the US and China from the equation. That being said, more could be done to try and make sure that the tech industry is taken to that next level and if the government become more invested then this will ultimately help other companies far more than people think.
Multiple Start-ups
Right now, it would seem that there are even more start-ups who are achieving well over 10-digit valuations. This is a sign of major maturity for the industry but when you look at 2011, you will see that this wasn’t always the case. The UK has suffered from cynicism a lot more when compared to the US but at the end of the day, the economic growth has shown no sign of slowing down. For a lot of tech entrepreneurs, the industry has flourished, and this is when you take into the fact that there has been no government support at all. In the event of a messy Brexit though, it may be that the tech industry is the first to take the hit.
British Business Bank
There is now a huge amount of capital that is available to start-ups in Britain. The British Business Bank is a publicly owned lender, and they have billions available to their entrepreneurs. The backing of VC funds have already been invested in unicorns as well. This happens to include Graphcore, Revolut and even TransferWise. This combined with the fact that there are now tax relief options available for early stage investments is fantastic to say the least. SEIS have made a huge difference so far to the world and it was really abundant that this has fuelled the industry. Hussein Kanji who is an investor for Hoxton Ventures has stated that in the past he has chosen to back Deliveroo and Darktrace. He has stated that VCs fret that a SEIS that has brought in the wrong kind of investors will breed dumb money. This is not the case at all, in fact, there are tons of tech companies out there that may end up delaying profit for several years, but this doesn’t mean that that they won’t come out on top. In fact, they could be great investments for the future and more and more people are being drawn to this concept.
