The London Tech Week 2024

I recently went to London Tech Week, alongside 45,000 other people who also attended. The event was different to shows like NAB / IBC / MPTS because it was focused on the benefits and impacts that Technology can have across industries rather than one specific industry. With that said, Financial Services was very well represented, and there was presence from the media sector, with organisations like the BBC and Channel 4 attending panels and sessions. Many of the topics that speakers raised in general, are critical topics for the media and entertainment? industry as well.

For those of you who couldn't attend, I've put together a few thoughts and key takeaways from the event. Several sessions have been brought into even sharper focus following the event, as Nvidia became the world's most valuable company (although we shouldn't overlook the subsequent fall to just (!) under $3 trillion at the time of writing!).

Access to capital is limiting start-up innovation and growth. The world will be even more dominated by trillion-dollar+ tech firms

It's widely known that the US (particularly West Coast US) has a much better and longer-established VC / funding base than we do here in Europe. However, even in the US, and more starkly here in Europe, the rising cost of capital means that it has been hard to get access to funding in recent months / years, particularly for companies in early stages of growth. Emphasis has shifted away from growth at all costs, to profitability, managed growth and healthy EBITDA and margins.?

A couple of panelists discussed the impact that this has had on startups (and mid-sized companies too) in the UK, who are finding it harder to raise the funds they need to expand. There was a strong feeling that innovation is being stifled because, whereas in the past, start-ups and disruptive technology companies might have a little longer to build and finesse their products, now, there is huge pressure to sell early, allowing VCs - and in particular the global technology firms - to profit most from new ideas and also limit competition.

Panellists argued that funding challenges haven't affected the Magnificent 7 anywhere near as much as smaller firms, because they operate on a completely different level to everyone else.

I researched a few examples that make this point loud and clear:

1. Apple’s 2022-23 profits of $100B, are roughly the same size as the entire UK media sector.

2. NVidia’s current market cap of around $3 Trillion is more than the value of the entire global media and entertainment sector ($2.32T according to PwC). The company's growth in 2023, around $900Billion, is about $400Billion more than the entire US media and entertainment sector.

3. If you measured Amazon's Revenue growth alone in 2023, it would make the company the 160th biggest company, by revenue, in the world. Or, put another way, Amazon added just a little bit less new business than Tesco's entire business in 2023 (Amazon growth = $60B vs Tesco's global revenue of ￡60B / $72B).

The pre-eminence of the tech majors and the trend for them to buy up their competition at early stages, raised fears for diversity and innovation. There was support for legislative intervention which could protect startups and smaller firms from aggressive interest, although the unexpected consequences of this could be significant.

How do we handle misinformation in a post-truth world?

This was the most interesting session of the show for me. Alex Mahon, CEO of Channel4, and Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, debated the challenges facing us in a post-truth, social media-dominated world. The discussion was peppered with interesting facts (there are now over 2 billion devices registered to use wikipedia) and the hosts explored how difficult it now is to tackle mis-information. Trust is becoming a new battleground for audiences, as sadly less than 50% of 12-25 year olds now trust traditional media to tell the truth. I believe passionately that we need to tackle this challenge head on, as the accuracy of news and other information that people get has major implications in an increasingly fragmented world.

Jack Dorsey was quoted as saying that “social media is draining people of free will”; an observation which led to a fascinating discussion about the impact of enhanced algorithms & AI / LLMs on creating and disseminating more believable, albeit potentially questionable, stories.

There is hope for European technology firms yet.

Despite the titanic proportions of the tech majors, there were positive signs for European technology companies. One panel observed that whilst Europe is undoubtedly behind the US, this represents an opportunity, and firms in Europe, including those working in media are filling the gap. H Company, an AI startup in Paris, was one example cited, that has just had a > $200M seed round recently. Another panelist, from Coreweave, which is based out of the US but making major international investments, spoke of 1,500% growth in ‘23, at least partly driven by European customers, presence and staff.?

European access to capital was also said to be far behind the US, but there is appetite from European politicians (the London Mayor visited the expo on Day 1 for instance) to level the playing field somewhat. According to panelists, European tech businesses are now seeing some of the benefits. One panel celebrated the engineering capabilities in France and the UK, saying the UK was particularly well equipped to deal with tech infrastructure and connectivity. ?

How do companies compete for talent in a global marketplace?

Scale and the ability to attract talent from a global pool came up multiple times at the conference. And it really is a challenge for us in media as well. Startups said they find it difficult to compete with big companies on salary, observing that there are increasing salary variations across borders. Some of the approaches that were said to help retain talent included:

• Embracing cultural and regional differences between countries.
• Building an organizational culture that empowers teams, ensuring they’re engaged with the decisions that affect them.??
• Ensure that staff are continually learning and are challenged by the work they’re doing.
• Create an environment where it’s ok to get things wrong. Mistakes will be made and that’s ok.

The future of technology (yes, including AI) is here now

There were quite a few examples of next generation technologies on show. A panel of highly experienced tech investors explored an interesting angle that AI will transform startups, by doing low value admin tasks that all businesses have to deal with, freeing up teams with very fine margins to concentrate on delivering value.

Elsewhere, there was a big queue for a booth offering a glimpse of the future of healthcare - you could step into a pod to do a health-check in 10 minutes or so without any need to send samples away for analysis (it made me think of a series I recently watched about Elisabeth Holmes titled ‘The Dropout’).

There were also some interesting scenes where Cognizant showed how tech / AR is helping them transform the performance of Aston Martin’s F1 team, which has echoes of the current AWS F1 ads, running at the moment.

How can start-ups gain traction in a global environment, with technology-led disruption?

It’s always been hard for small companies to go from disruptor to mid-sized to enterprise business. Building on points above, some argued that it is harder now than ever, to go from innovative disruptor to major business (incidentally, whilst I’d heard of unicorns before, ‘decacorns’ is new for me), because the tech majors are buying companies very early in their lifetime, to take out the competition.

However, when it comes to getting traction, particularly in the light of such fast pace of change, several approaches were proposed which I’ve seen work to varying degrees:?

• Build partnerships to increase reach and scale quickly
• Develop solutions that offer agility (technology and business) to customers as a core offering
• Build in the ability to scale, so that when it does go well, you’re positioned to succeed
• Competitors will come looking for your key people every 6 months, if things are going well, so make sure you have a culture that keeps them with you
• Plan ahead and record the business value you deliver as quickly as possible, as this can be gold dust for board presentations / pitches etc.?
• Get lucky and be in the right place at the right time!
• Focus, focus, focus: don’t spread yourselves too thinly, focus on your core offering, do that really well and don’t try to change more than 3-4 things at the same time, or you’ll cause havoc and lead to lots of unexpected consequences.

What can technology do to help manage global warming??

One area where Europe is apparently not behind, is Green Finance and technologies addressing global warming. Various data showed that there is significant funding available from various governments across Europe. Whilst China and the US have already invested heavily in this field, data shows climate tech to be a very large growth area for European businesses, which should turn it into an even more important part of company strategy. Many tech startups are building solutions around reducing our carbon footprint.