The UK is a leading European tech ecosystem because investors | Business News | Daily News Byte

While there has been much concern about the city’s competitive position this year – with Amsterdam overtaking London as Europe’s biggest center for share trading and the French stock market overtaking the UK’s in value – fresh data suggests the UK’s tech sector is holding on. enjoy a significant lead over its European counterparts.

Figures produced by data and intelligence platform Dealroom for the Digital Economy Council suggest fast-growing UK tech companies raised £24bn this year – more than their counterparts in France and Germany.

That takes the total raised by UK tech companies to £97bn over the past five years.

The figure is all the more shocking because, for much of the year, rising interest rates have made capital hard to come by and investors around the world have become increasingly skeptical of the tech sector.

Figures from Dealroom indicate that the UK’s tech industry is now worth $1trn – making it only the third country after the United States and China to achieve this milestone and confirm it as a leading European tech ecosystem.

Germany’s tech sector is now valued at $467.2bn while France’s is valued at $307.5bn.

Not only is the UK’s tech sector attracting more venture capital than its European counterparts, according to the figures, it is also creating more value for investors.

Figures suggest that, since the turn of the century, the UK has produced 144 ‘unicorns’ – start-ups that have gone on to achieve a valuation of more than $1bn – and 237 so-called ‘futurecorns’, which are companies. Which is valued north of $250m and is believed to be on its way to achieving unicorn status.

This is more than 116 Unicorns and 204 Futurecorns This time last year.

Paul Scully, Digital Minister, said: “UK tech has been resilient in the face of global challenges and we ended the year as one of the world’s leading places for digital businesses.

“This is great news and reflects our pro-innovation approach to tech regulation, continued support for start-ups and ambition to boost people’s digital skills.”

These figures underline the UK’s growing attractiveness to international venture capital firms.

This year has seen several major US tech investors, including General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed – all of which opened offices in the UK last year – increase their presence by taking on more staff.

They are joined in the UK this year by New Enterprise Associates, a 45-year-old US venture capital firm that has backed the likes of TikTok owner ByteDance and Berlin-based venture capital firm Earlybird.

UK-based funds have raised £9.2bn this year – just ahead of the £9bn they will raise in 2021 – with which to back fast-growing companies and start-ups.

Chris Bischoff, managing director of General Catalyst, said: “We set up a presence in London because we believe the UK is a stand-out ecosystem globally. Our experience over the past 18 months has deepened our appreciation for this incredible ecosystem, which enables us to Discover and support early-stage companies that are working to accelerate change in their industries.

“Importantly, our values ​​of responsible innovation and radical collaboration are fully aligned with the UK’s approach to innovation.”

Dealroom figures also suggest that tech innovation is spreading across the UK.

There are now eight cities – Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Leeds, London, Manchester, Nottingham and Oxford – that are home to two or more unicorns.

Some of these are now seen as challenging the dominance of the leading US tech ecosystem in specific disciplines: Cambridge was recently named the world’s third most important science center behind San Francisco and Boston’s Bay Area in Massachusetts. Oxford was ranked fifth in the list.

The University of Cambridge also recently topped a global ranking for producing the highest number of successful tech founders, with more than 500 of its alumni having raised at least $10m in funding.

The universities of Oxford, Bristol, Nottingham and London rank in the top 20 globally, alongside leading US institutions such as Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Amid a tight labor market, with over three million people now working in UK tech, the sector is increasingly taking on entry-level people. Job search engine Adzuna reports that, in November, there were more than 15,000 entry-level tech roles — up from 6,596 in November last year.

This has given rise to a number of so-called ‘edtech’ start-ups dedicated to equipping people with skills like coding and cyber security needed to pursue a successful career in tech. They are included MultiverseThe UK’s first edtech unicorn, founded by Euan Blair, son of former Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair.

Some of these, such as Code First Girls, specifically aim to increase the number of women working in the tech sector.

Anna Brailsford, Chief Executive of Code First Girls, said: “From using AI to tackle healthcare inequalities to designing and building space missions, incredible tech businesses are being launched and scaled in the UK every day.

“Yet too few women have the opportunity to work for these influential start-ups because they have not previously been encouraged to pursue careers in tech or learn key skills.

“We aim to train 26,000 women in the UK over the next five years and place them in technical roles so they can use their knowledge and skills to change this industry for the better.”