A short perspective on Founders Forum week

It’s Founders Forum again. This is the 13th time we’ve hosted the annual gathering, where technology founders, funders and business leaders can mix, share insights and help each other’s businesses.

That we started Founders Forum in London is a vital part of its magnetic pull. London is the beating heart of Europe’s entrepreneurial hub. Its diverse mix of people, cultural depth and heritage attract global founders. That the corporates based here are hungry to work with startups further cement this. 

I’m always amazed by the energy at these events. It’s surreal to see how enthusiastic and receptive a room of tech leaders is to be told by Sir David Attenborough to work together to clean up the oceans. There is also the humour (and truth) of a room of FTSE 100 chief executives being told by a cybersecurity founder that they are the biggest risk to their own organisations.

But what really excites me is the way that simply bringing the right people together can dramatically accelerate people’s potential. By helping entrepreneurs access business leaders’ experience and capital, ideas become companies. In turn, established businesses gain investment opportunities and a greater understanding of how technology is shaping the world. One of last year’s finalists for our FFactor competition for 14-25 year-old entrepreneurs presented his concept for real-time data-driven drone insurance. Recently he told me his company has now raised over ￡2 million in seed funding.

What has struck me the most is how UK tech is coming of age. 40% of Europe’s tech unicorns companies are based in the UK, with a combined value of $23 billion. When Baroness Martha Lane-Fox and I started lastminute.com 20 years ago, you were hard pressed to name young British founders raising over $1 million for their venture. But now the rounds are bigger and the entrepreneurs even younger.

What underpins all this is the same thing that makes Founders Forum a success: vast and varied networks of people, who all create opportunities for one another just by being in close proximity. London’s unique blend of talented people, plentiful capital and established corporates were a boon when we set up lastminute.com, allowing us to access global suppliers in core industries. At Founders Forum I learned from a partner at a top global venture capital fund that a Madrid-based portfolio company would be moving its HQ to London to take advantage and scale globally. And companies such as Graphcore in Bristol and CodeBase in Edinburgh are attracting considerable international investment beyond London.

One thing the UK understands better than most is the convening power of institutions in their own right. Number 10 is a great supporter of this country’s innovation agenda. They back events, such as the recent tech roundtable of major investors, including the $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund, Atomico, and founders such as Samir Desai and Demis Hassabis, which I co-chaired with the Prime Minister, where ￡2.3 billion new investment into the UK and a further ￡2.5 billion of new funds for “patient capital” were announced. I was delighted to see IT company Globant there. Now a $2 billion IT company, their first major customer almost 20 years ago was lastminute.com. 

The government has also become much bigger consumers of startups themselves. I learned that week at our CEO Breakfast, co-hosted with Google, that the security services and the military are separately both now exploring new projects with young entrepreneurs.

Even the Royal Family – the oldest institution of all – plays its role. I’ve chaired the Duke of Cambridge’s cyberbullying taskforce for two years now. As with much of my career, it started with a chance meeting after I helped a friend in the Royal Foundation convene a gaming industry event for wildlife conservation, one of the Duke’s other great passions. That week at Founders Factory, we convened Google, Facebook, Snap and a range of charities to discuss its work on greater safety design, a code of conduct, a public campaign – Stop, Speak, Support – and an in-app escalation platform. Excitingly, social media platform musical.ly was announced as the taskforce’s first Chinese member.

None of this would have been possible had the Duke not used his convening power. As a parent, he talks passionately about the challenges technology poses. Now industry partners have been assembled, some members of the taskforce are turning their attention to the wider issue of technology addiction. This is the model UK institutions can offer the world: using influence to build teams that persuade companies to back global initiatives. That is entrepreneurialism in action.

Ultimately, entrepreneurialism is all about individuals. As well as convening entrepreneurs, as many know, I also seed them. Being there right at the beginning, giving an entrepreneur their first cheque, is a unique opportunity to help them shape their business. But it’s also risky. You can’t overanalyse a startup, because they have so little track record. And in my experience, what determines success is the kind of person behind the business, not just the business proposition. So when I meet an entrepreneur, I ask: would they have inspired my 25-year-old self to want to work for them?

It’s far from a foolproof technique, of course. In 2005 I turned down the opportunity to invest in my old former colleague’s Pete Flint’s venture Trulia (he sold it for $3.5 billion in 2014.) I then turned down the chance to invest in Zoopla, a potential competitor to Trulia, out of respect for Pete (it is now worth over ￡2 billion.) But Pete is now on the advisory board of my new seed fund, firstminute capital, which last week announced a final close of $100 million to invest in European startups. In the digital age, it is often analogue networks that are the most valuable asset of all. 

There is still so much more to do. Far too few women are entrepreneurs in technology, and unlocking their entrepreneurialism is an economic imperative. Recently, Founders Forum’s accelerateHER initiative, which puts the power of networks at women’s disposal, joined the Male Champions of Change Institute in Australia to tailor its work to the tech industry, to help men help women. And we need to train the next generation. At Number 10 that same day we announced a new platform to provide resources for schools and universities to offer entrepreneurship training.

Later that night we hosted a dinner for the benefit of our international Founders Forum guests. Assembling artists, actors, designers, academics, politicians, newspaper editors, founders and global CEOs, was a beautiful illustration of the eclecticism that makes London so special. The room was silent for the daughter of the late Baroness Tessa Jowell. She movingly urged the room to support ACT, the cancer charity encouraging doctors to collaborate on pioneering treatments not available on the NHS.

There are always bigger challenges for entrepreneurs to tackle.