A tech business was born every 30 mins in the UK in 2020, vs. every 60 mins in 2018...a few things we've been up to and what's coming up.

It's been a while since I last posted here, so planning on sharing what we have been up to at Tech Nation, as regularly as I can. Thank you for reading.

Record Year

2020 was a record year for many things, and for many reasons. One of them was that Venture capital investment in UK tech companies hit a record-breaking $15bn in 2020 - the equivalent to the market cap of Europe’s top unicorn Checkout.com! We also saw 7 new tech unicorns created in the UK last year, with an additional 6 appearing just in Q1 of 2021. These were just a few of the astonishing and encouraging findings from the Tech Nation Report 2021, which launched on March 12th.

Additionally, new research into business births from the Digital Economy Council, which I’m proud to be part of, also highlighted that last year, an astonishing 19,465 new tech businesses were created. That’s the equivalent of a new tech company launched every 30 mins!

Race to Zero

It is truly a privilege to partner with so many companies who are driving this incredible growth, and transforming the world we live in every day. We saw this firsthand at the Net Zero 1.0 closing session in March, which served as an incredible reminder of how powerful UK tech companies’ missions can be. We heard from fast-growing scaleups such as Sustainable Seaweed, Ember, and Triodos, who are all actively working towards conscious capitalism and living more lightly on our planet across a wide range of industries. For example, Sustainable Seaweed grow and process seaweed sustainably around the world, Triodos have become a global leader in sustainable banking, and Ember are accelerating the global electricity transition from coal to clean. 

Innovation in regulated markets; from Sandboxes to Scaleboxes

LawTech is an area set for growth as the legal profession is ripe for disruption through Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learnings. Our Lawtech Sandbox Pilot Showcase Event was well received. The event was a brilliant opportunity to showcase the progress made by pioneering lawtech companies Amplified Global, Legal Utopia, ClauseMatch, Deriskly and Legal Schema, as well as highlighting the key insights gained since the Sandbox Pilot launched in December. Amplified Global and Legal Utopia are working to make law accessible and affordable for everyone, ClauseMatch is helping regulated companies run their businesses safely, Legal Schema enable legal documents to be easily structured and consumed as data, and Deriskly are using AI to help businesses detect dispute risks. At Tech Nation, we’re proud to be a part of these companies’ journeys as they transform and innovate in the legal space. 

FinTech & FinTech Week next week:

Looking ahead, next week is Fintech Week; a time to both celebrate and accelerate the success of the UK’s growing fintech and insurtech sector. This is a brilliant opportunity for established financial institutions, entrepreneurs, regulators and policy-makers to come together to learn, discuss and network. Among the many exciting events set to take place as part of Fintech Week, I look forward to the Fintech Delivery Panel’s upcoming session on the 21st April around how we can strengthen partnerships between fintechs and leading financial institutions. At the event, we’ll also be hearing more about the Fintech Pledge’s mission from experts Eileen Burbidge, Partner Passion Capital and Chair of the Fintech Delivery Panel, and Economic Secretary to the Treasury, John Glen MP, alongside experts from some of the world’s leading financial institutions. We hope you’ll join us! 

Future Fifty 9.0 to be announced!

We are also excited to be announcing this year’s inspiring new cohort of companies joining Future Fifty 9.0 next week -- this is one of Europe's longest and most successful growth programme for late-stage tech companies. Exciting things are coming. Just watch this space!