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Every tech hub has its startup event: Helsinki has Slush. Paris has VivaTech. Munich has Bits & Pretzels. Berlin has SuperVenture. And London — the world’s second biggest startup ecosystem, according to Startup Genome — has London Tech Week.
Launched 10 years ago by the city’s promotional agency London & Partners to boost the city’s tech scene, the event — which isn’t really one conference but a medley of drinks, dinners and parties, panel discussions and speeches from government taking place all over the city — had 45k attendees, 350+ speakers and 200+ exhibitors.
Much of it centred on its new venue — Olympia London (which hosts various events from the Ideal Home Show to the International Security Expo) — where many of the city’s most buzzy startups took to the stage, from autonomous vehicle startup Wayve's founder Alex Kendall (fresh from a much-talked-about $1bn fundraise) to Octopus Energy CEO Greg Jackson.
London mayor Sadiq Khan kicked things off on Monday — and also addressed a small crowd of Europe founders, VCs and the like at Somerset House yesterday, lauding London’s “openness, diversity and tolerance”.
“Our values are — in VC jargon — our moat,” he quipped.
He also boasted about the 1,500 plus AI startups headquartered in London — more than anywhere else in Europe. UK AI startups raised over $3bn in 2023, according to a report published by Tech Nation this week; more than double the amount raised by startups and scaleups in France and Germany.
Sifted doesn’t enjoy tech ecosystem one-upmanship quite as much as mayors and presidents, but there is plenty to celebrate in the UK capital. The value of London’s tech ecosystem has grown from $70bn in 2014 to $621.5bn in 2023, according to Startup Genome; the city has 103 unicorns, and VCs invested $12bn in the ecosystem last year.
But there’s also plenty to moan about. Hot topics that we’ve heard attendees gripe about this week include Labour’s proposed plan to increase the tax on carried interest; the ongoing lack of growth funding in the UK; and some universities taking too much equity in their spinouts.
Sir Patrick Vallance, former chief scientific advisor to the UK government (and Covid-era TV celebrity), who’s now on the board of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), said at another side event at VC firm LocalGlobe’s office that he’s seeing some positive signs there, however. More academics in the UK are open to commercialising their research, he said — and places like London (as well as Manchester and Cambridge) are strong locations for academics-come-entrepreneurs.
Today it’s the most sought-after side event of all: Founders Forum — and it isn't even in London. Its 450 attendees include 218 unicorn founders, 130 VCs with a collective $1.5tn in assets under management and a handful of celebrities too.
Stay tuned for what we find out on the ground there.
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