We recently convened a roundtable of founders and business advisers to talk candidly about R&D tax relief. Following the event, we put out a call for further evidence, which has been fed into this policy brief. What emerged was a plea for predictability, clarity and the kind of practical engagement that lets companies plan, hire and build.
Half the Battlers
To those outside the entrepreneurial ecosystem, the fact that more than half of the UK’s fastest-growing businesses have a foreign-born founder often comes as a surprise.
This outsized contribution certainly surprised me when I first dipped my toe in the entrepreneurial waters while interviewing entrepreneurs at City A.M. Not that it was a ‘fact’ back then. To put a number on the phenomenon, we had to team up with one of our longest-serving Advisers, Beauhurst’s Henry Whorwood. Combining their proprietary fundraising data with Eamonn Ives’ methodical desk research meant that this week, in partnership with Kingsley Napley, we were able to reveal in Job Creators 2025 that 54% of the UK’s fastest-growing businesses have at least one founder – and often multiple – who was born overseas.
Among the 219 founders behind this year’s fastest-growing companies, 42% came from abroad – remarkable given immigrants make up less than half that in the population at large. Of the 54 immigrant-founded firms, almost half were created entirely by foreign-born teams, while the rest were built by mixed founding teams. This shows how international founders typically complement, rather than compete with, domestic talent. Put simply, this cohort of immigrant founders is more than twice as entrepreneurial as their population share would predict.
There are plenty of theories for why immigrants are more entrepreneurial – from immigration self-selecting for risk-takers, to blocked mobility in traditional labour markets, to the fact that immigrants are more likely to cluster in cities where agglomeration effects are strongest. Whatever the mix, the UK has clearly tapped into an extraordinary resource that we must protect.
The case studies in the report reveal the kind of frontier-level innovation immigrant founders bring to Britain. Teru Adachi is building cyber-intelligence tools that expose hidden threats in global supply chains. Dimitri Masin is developing AI systems for high-stakes financial environments. Kevin Lester is revolutionising how financial institutions manage risk. And in the NHS, Jing Ouyang is reinventing hospital workforce planning with technology that frees up time and improves care.
To get more Terus, Dimitris, Kevins and Jings, we set out several straightforward tweaks that could be made to the immigration system: 1) reforming the Global Talent visa so it welcomes world-class operators and experienced tech executives; 2) making the Innovator Founder visa functional by trusting endorsers and aligning settlement criteria with real startup timelines; 3) creating a selective Spinout visa for graduates and academics linked to high-quality incubators; and 4) reducing the cost and admin burden on early-stage firms by freezing fees and allowing staggered payments.
The numbers involved – whether in people or cost to the Exchequer – are tiny. But if we attract more incredible entrepreneurs as a result, the returns to the country would be enormous.
Of course, visas aren’t the whole story. One thing I’ve learned from talking with Britain’s most ambitious founders – including many on this list who have raised millions – is that they’re acutely aware of incentives and disincentives. Unlike some ministers I’ve met over the years (who will remain nameless), they all know their EIS from their EMI, and what other countries are offering. They also, like everyone else, want to feel welcome in the country to which they’re offering up blood, sweat and tears to realise their bold visions.
We know – because you told us so – that more than a quarter of entrepreneurs are considering leaving the UK in the next 12 months. I don’t want to get doomy and gloomy, but a lot hangs in the balance ahead of next week’s Budget. Over to you, Rachel.
Policy Fix
Patron – and friend of The Entrepreneurs Network – Steve Rigby has launched a new podcast: The Policy Fix. His first guest is the inimitable Rupert Soames, Chair of the CBI, and it’s available on Apple, YouTube, Spotify. Do give it a listen.
You Dropped This
Another week, another new Adviser: Peter King, Director of Business Banking at OakNorth. He’ll draw on his experience to highlight how the UK’s “missing middle” of scaleups is underserved, how regulation slows responsive lending, and how better data infrastructure could unlock faster, more flexible finance. As he put it: “The Entrepreneurs Network brings together ambitious business leaders, ecosystem players and advisors so that we all raise our game.”
If you want to join Peter and others in our mission to make the UK the best place in the world to start and grow a business, find out more about becoming an Adviser here.
True to
We’ve updated our Membership sign-up form. It’s free to join, and by doing so you’ll stay updated on our work, be invited to the events and opportunities most relevant to you, and help us prioritise what matters most to entrepreneurs.
Three Big Ideas #48
Three Big Ideas is our fortnightly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.
This week, Philip Salter explains how Europe can grow again, Eamonn Ives defends university rankings, and Rebecca Hill from the Campaign for Science and Engineering reveals what the public think about R&D.
Ban the Budget
Here’s a bold idea. Let’s ban the Budget.
When entrepreneurs are turning to me for business advice – specifically, asking whether they should sell up or move out of the country – you know that something has gone very, very wrong.
Today’s flip-flopping on hiking income tax rates is just the latest twist in a month or more of deep uncertainty for British businesses.
It’s no doubt partly why, as reported by John Thornhill in Sifted, we found in our latest poll that just 3% of founders thought the government understood the needs of entrepreneurs. As Thornhill reports, this lack of confidence has political consequences:
“Such has been the disappointment with the government that more respondents said they would vote for the populist Reform party (15%) than for the ruling Labour party (10%) if an election were held tomorrow. Even more unnervingly, 27% of entrepreneurs said they were intending to leave Britain over the next year.”
If Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are serious about, well, so-called “serious government,” ending the political chaos of the Budget would be the “grown-up” thing to do.
As I’ve argued in the past, periods of high political uncertainty typically coincide with measurable drops in new business formation, investment, and innovation. When founders anticipate shifts in tax policy, regulation, trade arrangements, or public spending, the resulting volatility makes it difficult to project returns and encourages firms to defer launches, pause expansion, rethink hiring, and put R&D on ice.
Academic studies illustrate these effects clearly. Following the unexpected policy regime shift after President Trump’s first term, researchers found a decline in patenting and VC funding among high-growth startups, especially those denied H-1B workers despite winning the visa lottery. As Nicholas Bloom’s latest paper shows, Brexit uncertainty produced similar outcomes in the UK, adding further weight to evidence that our withdrawal from the European Union reduced equity investment and lowered employment growth.
This is a long-winded way of backing Hugo Gye in The i Paper and Andrew Marr on LBC in calling for the Budget to be scrapped.
It wouldn’t be easy. Abolishing the Budget would require strict safeguards: regular Office for Budget Responsibility assessments to ensure borrowing rules are being met, and a transparent year-round balance sheet capturing all tax and spending changes. Continuous transparency and independent oversight would be essential to keep the public finances disciplined.
Nevertheless, the alternative is demonstrably worse. Annual Budget theatrics freeze investment, delay hiring, and distort economic decision-making across both the private and public sectors. Concentrating all major tax and spending signals into a single annual event amplifies volatility, creates avoidable information gaps, and ties business planning to an arbitrary political timetable.
Is this wishful thinking? Of course it is. But to steal the quip from Dr Madsen Pirie, who knows a thing or two about economic revolutions: “We propose things which people regard as being on the edge of lunacy. The next thing you know, they’re on the edge of policy.”
Rocketing Ahead
I’m delighted to share that Richard Browning, Founder and CEO of Gravity Industries, has joined us this week as an Adviser. You’ll recognise him as the man who “has turned the impossible dream of human flight into a ground-breaking $80m+ business.” In his own words:
“Entrepreneurship and innovation are the true engines of economic growth, and we need to keep that spirit alive by empowering the next generation of business owners to think boldly and act fearlessly. Every single business starts with individuals willing to take risks, challenge convention and build something new, and I’m looking forward to supporting The Entrepreneurs Network as they continue to play a crucial role in supporting these risk takers, and ensuring that innovation and entrepreneurship remain at the heart of Britain’s future.”
If that doesn’t inspire you to become an Adviser too, perhaps nothing will.
Firm Footing
Forsters LLP is the latest on our growing stable of Corporate Partners. Joining us as Advisers, we’re delighted to welcome Daniel Bryan, Counsel in the Corporate team, and Oliver Claridge, Senior Associate.
Daniel advises founders and investors across the full lifecycle of growth, giving him a sharp view of the legal and commercial frictions that slow fundraising, deals and exits. He will help shape our policy agenda around obstacles in UK company law and investment processes, ensuring our recommendations reflect the real challenges scaling businesses face.
Oliver is a recognised expert on founder-facing tax issues – from investment reliefs and employment taxation to cross-border and crypto tax – and will help guide our policy work by pinpointing the tax barriers that most constrain entrepreneurs and where targeted reform would have the biggest impact.
Get in touch to find out more about becoming a Corporate Partner.
Leaps and Bounds
A fast-growing London community of immigrant founders and investors is currently looking for a new home to expand. Founded by a highly respected early-stage venture group, this community runs more than 60 high-quality gatherings each year, bringing together founders, investors, operators, universities, and international delegations. Their focus is on helping ambitious entrepreneurs accelerate fundraising, go-to-market progress, and network-building within the UK tech ecosystem.
They’re now exploring partnership opportunities with organisations that share their mission or see a strategic fit in hosting a vibrant, high-growth founder community. If you know a venue, organisation, or partner that may be interested, I’d be very happy to make an introduction. Just let me know.
Steer the Agenda
I’m delighted to share that I’ve joined the Steering Group of the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC). Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the ERC has been delivering independent research to inform policy and practice on small- and medium-sized enterprises since 2013. Sign up to their newsletter here (scroll down).
Exit, Voice, and Loyalty
This week, we launched our pre-Budget Entrepreneurs Survey. I won’t sugarcoat things: the findings make for brutal reading. (Though do read on for a silver lining.)
To be clear from the start, this survey reflects the views of some of the UK’s most ambitious founders – not freelancers, CEOs parachuted into existing firms, or survey-panel participants posing as entrepreneurs. These are the people building significant companies from the ground up. This is where innovation, jobs and productivity come from, so their views matter.
Eighty-five per cent of respondents think the Government doesn’t understand the needs of entrepreneurs, while only 3% think it does. Seventy-nine per cent say life as an entrepreneur has become harder since they started; just 6% say it has become easier.
Following the first Labour Budget, we know that over half of entrepreneurs surveyed reduced their growth expectations and nearly as many paused hiring. A third cut headcount, and a third reduced investment in R&D.
Even more concerning, six in ten founders know at least one entrepreneur who has sold their business or left the UK because of changes made to capital gains taxes. Seven in ten know at least one who is planning to leave due to the current or expected tax regime. A striking 88% of founders view current UK taxation negatively, and 72% say the same about regulation – both an increase on June’s survey.
With the next Budget less than a few weeks away, 88% expect taxes to rise, and 82% expect the Budget to be bad for the entrepreneurial community at large. A fifth of founders surveyed plan to sell their business, and over a quarter plan to leave the UK. Something has to give. As our Research Director and number-cruncher Eamonn Ives was quoted by City A.M. as saying:
“Our polling shows that years of repeated tax hikes are now taking their toll. The UK can’t hope to outcompete tax havens, but we can be smarter about how we raise money to fund public services.”
“None of the Above” remains the most common answer to the question of which political party founders told us best understands entrepreneurs, though the Conservatives and Reform have made modest gains at the expense of Labour and the Liberal Democrats since our last survey. Among those expressing a preference, if a General Election were held tomorrow, 18% would vote Conservative, 16% Liberal Democrat, 15% Reform and 10% Labour.
I promised you a silver lining.
First, despite everything above, many of these same founders plan to increase headcount, R&D spending, exporting, expand internationally and seek new investment over the next 12 months.
Second, founders who would still encourage someone to start a business in the UK outnumber those who would not by a ratio of two to one.
And finally, we can only run this survey because there are founders who are as ambitious for the UK as they are for their own businesses (thank you to those of you who took part).
We don’t underestimate the challenge of balancing the books. Entrepreneurs aren’t asking for miracles – just a sense that things are moving in the right direction. It’s time to turn a corner.
If you want to join us in dissecting the next Budget, request a place to join us on 10 December at Home Grown for a panel discussion with Partners Wealth Management (PWM).
On the Uptake
Here’s another dose of optimism. Three quarters of entrepreneurs are positive about the impact AI will have on their business, with just 3% pessimistic. The main things holding them back from increasing their use of AI in their businesses are security or privacy concerns and accuracy or mistakes, although nearly a third haven’t found any barriers.
And while it’s leading to fewer hires for some, it is far from clear that it’s going to cause a spike in unemployment. For that, look at our findings on the much-maligned Employment Rights Bill. Among those aware of its implications, most think it will have a negative impact on the economy.
Coining it in
We’re delving into the policy details of stablecoins and would welcome input from experts – particularly in finance, law or Parliament. If you or your organisation has insights to share, get in touch.
Laid Plans
Fidelity International is launching major research on the retirement savings crisis facing UK entrepreneurs. They’re looking for founders willing to be case studies for the national press – offering a short quote for the media release and, if comfortable, speaking with a national journalist. You can reach out to Fidelity via email here.
Three Big Ideas #47
Three Big Ideas is our fortnightly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.
This week, Eamonn Ives dwells on why American startups are pulling ahead of their European counterparts, Philip Salter salutes a significant tax consensus, and Pedro Serodio warns that public data is slowly degrading.
Burning Ambition
On Wednesday we launched Ambition Unlimited, the inaugural report of our Young Entrepreneurs Forum.
Speaking at the launch in the House of Lords were Callum Anderson MP, Sean Kohli, Chair of the Young Entrepreneurs Forum, Dana Denis-Smith OBE, Founder of Obelisk Support, and our Research Director, Eamonn Ives, who all set out a positive case for why we need to back the next generation.
As I wrote in Forbes, Eamonn delivers a compelling suite of policies which would deliver a platform upon which entrepreneurs can flourish:
“The UK must double down on openness, dynamism and stability. That means ensuring tax and investment incentives stay internationally competitive, designing regulation that adapts quickly to new technologies, and keeping visa routes navigable and attractive so that founders like Lin continue to choose Britain as their base. Above all, government should give entrepreneurs the confidence to plan for the decade ahead, not just the next fiscal statement.”
I would, as you would expect, encourage you all to dig into the report, but I want to take a slightly different tack today and share one lesson I’ve learned from the events we’ve undertaken with the Young Entrepreneurs Forum project: that Britain has no shortage of talent nor ambition to take on the world.
We’re not alone. Matt Clifford CBE expressed similar sentiments in a speech at the recent LFG conference, arguing that, as the birthplace of modern science, democracy, industry, medicine, computing, and even sport and literature, Britain can be so once again.
It goes without saying that we believe in the importance of policy change to drive change. But it’s also worth acknowledging that much can still be achieved despite these constraints.
To that end, it’s worth sharing a list of organisations that support the next generation of entrepreneurs that our Adviser and the Small Business Commissioner, Emma Jones CBE, put together following our event, including Young Enterprise, Founders for Schools, Kickstarter and LaunchIt. Emma encourages you to share other organisations that support young entrepreneurs, which you can do so here.
It’s vital to attack the challenge of renewal on both fronts. Policy change and practical efforts reinforce each other – not least because launching a report with over 100 of the most ambitious young entrepreneurs in the country gives you the inspiration to keep up the policy work to support them.
500 Smiles
Without much of a push, our WhatsApp community has now grown steadily to over 500 people. We still have some work to do in thinking about how we can make the most of the groups (answers on a postcard, please), but it’s proving a useful avenue to share our latest work, events and opportunities. Join our community here.
Express Yourself
To coincide with some polling they’ve commissioned on the importance of networking for small businesses, American Express is looking for case studies of entrepreneurs with positive stories to tell.
Perhaps networking helped you to land a big client, navigate a rocky period, or make connections necessary for international expansion. Whatever it was, if you have benefited from networking in the past and want to be considered for a case study, let us know by emailing us with a few sentences about yourself and how networking helped your business.
Trading Places
The Department for Business and Trade has asked us to share that next week is the fifth edition of International Trade Week (ITW) – five days of free online and in-person events designed to help businesses grow through exporting. Find out more here.
Think Inside the Box
Some policy ideas take a while to bear fruit. Take this week’s announcement of the AI Growth Lab, a regulatory sandbox in which innovators can safely test their AI products under adjusted or temporarily relaxed regulations.
This announcement puts a bit more meat on the bones of the AI Opportunities Action Plan, which, among many other things, called on the Government to “work with regulators to accelerate AI in priority sectors and implement pro-innovation initiatives like regulatory sandboxes.” However, this is an idea with a long history.
Success, of course, has many mothers and fathers, but it’s worth looking into the work of John Fingleton CBE, who, over the years, has created the conceptual framework and supplied the intellectual ballast for those making the case for the sort of pro-innovation regulation the UK needs. His advocacy for bounded regulatory discretion and competition-driven innovation not only influenced the creation of the FCA’s sandbox, but also this week’s announcement.
The most compelling aspect of the policy is the option to regulate across the economy, rather than relying on the coordination of existing regulators. This chimes with Fingleton’s idea for an ‘n+1 regulator’, which he explained in an interview I conducted with him earlier this year:
“The idea of the n+1 regulator goes back to about 2012, when I worked in the Cabinet Office and was advising on supply-side reforms. The essential idea was that new business models come along, and the existing regulatory framework doesn’t suit them. That could be because incumbents have captured it, or it could be because what they’re doing is just more risky or has a different profile of risk.”
The point here isn’t to write the history, but to shape the future. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has opened a consultation and would like to hear from individuals and organisations who are interested in using the AI Growth Lab; who are going to be affected by it; or who have expert views on implementing sandboxes.
Having spoken to the officials working on this policy, we highly recommend relevant entrepreneurs in our network consider responding. If you’d like to get in touch with us beforehand about that, my email is always open. We may also host a roundtable discussion with the government on this topic, so please get in touch to show early interest.
Anasta–see ya!
After a highly productive year and a half with us, our Head of Science and Technology, Anastasia Bektimirova, has left to join the Royal Academy of Engineering. Anastasia achieved a lot during her time at The Entrepreneurs Network, including authoring Governing in the Age of AI: Building Britain’s National Data Library, Towards a More Special Relationship and Full Speed Ahead, but perhaps her greatest legacy will be in moving our newsletter here – to Substack – which is proving to be a brilliant decision as our content and numbers continue to grow. Anastasia will be staying on as an Adviser – nobody ever really leaves The Entrepreneurs Network.
Network Intelligence
Anastasia also helped launch our new UK AI Fieldbook series, with her interview with Paul Patras, founder of Net AI, which looks into how AI is transforming mobile networks to prevent communications blackouts and optimise energy consumption.
It’s a cracking read with a lot of lessons for policymakers, including the need to design funding and policy around real startup experience, not top-down assumptions; to fix cash-flow pain by paying grants upfront rather than in arrears; to emulate ARIA’s speed, flexibility and minimal paperwork; and to bridge gaps between early-stage schemes like ICURe and follow-on support.
There’s also a clear case for modernising grant rules to suit globally distributed teams, tailoring evaluation criteria to company maturity, and, coincidentally enough, investing in AI sandboxes and better public compute tools so startups can safely develop and deploy innovations in critical sectors.
The UK AI Fieldbook series is kindly sponsored by OpenAI. This gives us the time and resources to really uncover the policy lessons from entrepreneurs at the cutting edge. We want to replicate this sort of deep policy dive with entrepreneurs across other areas of the ecosystem, so if you’re keen to partner with us on this, get in touch.
Three Big Ideas #46
Three Big Ideas is our fortnightly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.
This week, Eamonn Ives asks whether Waymo can inspire an uptick in innovation, Bella Rhodes explains how to turbocharge EMI, and Ed Hezlet makes the environmental case for reducing taxes on electricity.
Creative Thinking
This year’s winners of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences are a win for entrepreneurship, with Joel Mokyr awarded it for showing how the Industrial Enlightenment made growth possible through ideas and openness, and Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt recognised for their explanation of how creative destruction keeps economies advancing.
On Mokyr, Dr Anton Howes, author of many of our reports, wrote the definitive reaction post following his win. As Anton notes, Mokyr put entrepreneurs and innovation at the heart of the story of how our species went from near-universal poverty to relative prosperity:
“Whereas most of the public, and even many historians, think of the causes of modern economic growth – the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution – as being rooted in material factors, like conquest, colonialism, or coal, Mokyr tirelessly argued that it was rooted in ideas, in the intellectual entrepreneurship of figures like Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, and in the uniquely precocious accumulation in eighteenth-century Britain of useful, often mechanically actionable knowledge. Britain, he argued, through its scientific and literary societies, and its penchant for publications and sharing ideas, was the site of a world-changing Industrial Enlightenment – the place where progress was thought possible, and then became real.”
This worldview aligns with one of our core tenets: to elevate the status and champion the role of entrepreneurs across society. From our reports, it shows itself most clearly in Anton’s Blueprint for a New Great Exhibition, which makes the case for why we need to recreate the Great Exhibition of 1851, to both inspire innovation and foster a culture of improvement among frontier entrepreneurs and the general population. More broadly, it’s the reason behind every meeting and every event we host.
Turning to Aghion and Howitt, the name of this very Substack, Perennial Gale, isn’t a reference to Britain’s inclement weather, but a quote from Joseph Schumpeter’s description of capitalism as “the perennial gale of creative destruction.” His observation in 1942 was that our economic system is neither stable nor static, but constantly shaped by innovation, entrepreneurship and change. Entrepreneurs are central to this, driving forward economic progress by disrupting existing systems.
Aghion and Howitt put some numbers on the theory. As the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences stated in its press release:
“In an article from 1992, they constructed a mathematical model for what is called creative destruction: when a new and better product enters the market, the companies selling the older products lose out. The innovation represents something new and is thus creative. However, it is also destructive, as the company whose technology becomes passé is outcompeted. In different ways, the laureates show how creative destruction creates conflicts that must be managed in a constructive manner. Otherwise, innovation will be blocked by established companies and interest groups that risk being put at a disadvantage.”
As backers of upstarts over incumbents, you can see why we’re so keen on the winners.
Aghion and Howitt’s work also highlights an emerging challenge: the growing productivity gap between frontier firms and laggards. The best business models and innovations aren’t diffusing as rapidly as they once did. This raises familiar, but no less urgent, questions like: What barriers prevent promising startups from scaling? Why aren’t successful innovations spreading to more firms? How can policy accelerate knowledge transfer while preserving the competitive dynamics that reward innovation?
We exist to answer these questions, but we also need insights from the frontline of entrepreneurship. Answers on a postcard (or email).
Table Matters
On Wednesday, we will host a roundtable lunch with Alex Depledge MBE, Entrepreneurship Adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
This one will be focused on scaling businesses with either £10 million in annual revenue or that have raised over £10 million in venture capital funding. If that’s you, we might still be able to squeeze you in – please request a place here.
I know Alex has been tirelessly hosting roundtables like this with businesses at various sizes and stages up and down the country, but if you haven’t had the chance to chat with her, please get in touch with me before Wednesday with what you think the Chancellor needs to know going into the Budget, and I’ll pass it on directly to her.
Oxford Come ’ere
Since our very first Ecosystem Builders event, the positive feedback has been supplemented with a fair critique: what about the rest of the country? Well, we’ve listened, so I’m delighted to announce that we’re going to Oxford, courtesy of our co-hosts Dr Fabio Bianchi (Oxentia) and Meric Sevgi Eren.
Oxford Edge has a workspace you’ll be able to work from, so we’re encouraging people to make a day of it. Find out more here.
Our sights are also set on Birmingham, Leeds, Cardiff, Manchester, Cambridge and Edinburgh, so watch this space for more information. And get in touch if you’re happy to host a bunch of energetic ecosystem builders in your city.
Know Your Limits
The Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) are the backbone of Britain’s innovation economy, fuelling thousands of startups up and down the country. Yet the annual and lifetime investment limits for these schemes have been frozen for nearly a decade. In that time, inflation has eroded their real value, meaning their impact is now roughly three-quarters of what it once was, and could soon fall to half of their 2016 strength if nothing changes.
That’s why we’re backing Growth Beyond Limits, a new campaign calling on the Chancellor to raise the lifetime company investment limit to £30 million, or £40 million for Knowledge-Intensive Companies (KICs), and the annual limit to £15 million, or £25 million for KICs, alongside a commitment to review them every three years. If you believe Britain should back its most innovative businesses with funding that keeps pace with the times, you can read the letter here and sign it alongside me and many others here.
State of AI
Yesterday, Nathan Benaich released his annual State of AI Report 2025. While coming in at over 300 slides, as always, Air Street Capital’s General Partner delivers. There is a lot to unpack, but I’ll focus on one aspect that matters to everyone reading this.
The report covers OpenAI’s new GDPval benchmark, an evaluation launched in September that measures model performance on economically valuable, real-world tasks across 44 occupations. The results are clear: models now rival human experts across many professions.
As many of you will know first-hand, general-purpose models are proving effective as professional assistants, and companies like Lufthansa are forecasting thousands of administrative job cuts by 2030 on the back of AI.
Entry-level jobs are being hit hardest. Hiring for junior software and support roles has stagnated since 2022, even as overall employment rises. Law school applications are up 21% as graduates hedge their bets, while seasoned professionals appear more insulated – for now, at least.
Not everyone agrees this signals an imminent crisis. A Yale–Brookings study suggests AI’s long-term disruption may take decades. Yet both OpenAI and Anthropic report growing use of their models for workplace tasks.
This is largely a good thing – after all, this is what increasing productivity and growth looks like. But if this is the way of the future, entrepreneurial skills will be at a premium. It’s a strange world where being an entrepreneur is a safer bet than some established professions, but that may be where we’re heading.
(I recommend reading it in full. For the futurism-enjoyers, flip to the predictions on slide 11 and then to slide 305. The deck starts with a scorecard on last year’s calls, such as an open-source alternative surpassing OpenAI’s o1 (“YES,” with DeepSeek-R1), and challengers failing to dent NVIDIA’s dominance (“YES”), then lays out ten bold bets for the next 12 months. Highlights include the prediction that a major retailer will get over 5% of online sales from agentic checkout as agent-ad spend hits $5 billion.)
Still Stock-Still?
Last Friday, I discussed Britain’s downturn in listings. What a difference a week makes. Since then, the Manchester-based The Beauty Tech Group listed on the London Stock Exchange with an initial market cap of £300 million, while the pipeline for the first half of 2026 looks promising.
A lot of my job revolves around pointing out how things could be better. But that shouldn’t be mistaken for thinking Britain is the basket case that some seem to think it is. We have cracked, or inherited, many of the hard things that make a country a great place to be an entrepreneur – from world-class universities and a strong rule of law to a global financial centre, a global language, and a culture that prizes creativity and fairness.
Too often, we make the easy things harder than they need to be – through complex taxes, clunky regulation, and slow-moving policymaking. But I like to think these are problems to be fixed, rather than insurmountable barriers to crash up against.
This is why, at The Entrepreneurs Network, we’re optimistic.
Message from our Partner
Zestic AI has announced a new partnership with Proteus, the UK’s leader in strategic change management, to help organisations move from AI pilots to measurable performance. By combining Proteus’ $100 billion transformation dataset and change-management expertise with Zestic AI’s AI-first architecture, the partnership enables companies to embed AI directly into live and new transformation programmes – without disruption. Together, the two firms aim to help Boards and C-suites turn AI from experiment into enterprise capability, accelerating productivity, innovation, and growth. Read the full announcement to learn how the partnership is redefining what intelligent transformation looks like in practice.
Three Big Ideas #45
Three Big Ideas is our fortnightly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.
This week, Philip Salter hails the work of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, Eamonn Ives looks at why startups are taking longer to go public, and Anastasia Bektimirova discusses whether agentic AI could spell the end of the line for transaction costs.
Stock-Still
First, the good news. This is the last time I’m going to harass you (at least via the newsletter) to fill in our latest survey. We’re on the cusp of our target number of responses, so if you’re an entrepreneur, you could be the one to make our day. If you’re part of any other network of founders, sharing it would be incredibly helpful.
Now, the bad news. London has dropped to twenty-third place globally for IPOs. Twenty-third. Behind Oman, Mexico and Croatia. According to Bloomberg, volume this year dropped 69% to $248 million, the weakest haul in more than 35 years. In 2013, UK IPOs accounted for more than half of the European fundraising total – this year it’s just 3%. Ouch!
No wonder the Treasury is reported to be considering giving a stamp duty holiday to new London Stock Exchange (LSE) listings. The measure would exempt investors from the 0.5% tax on buying the shares of newly listed companies in the UK, applying for a period of two to three years after the company’s stock market flotation.
While the current state of public finances might not allow it in November’s budget, the Government should really scrap stamp duty entirely. As we argued in Backing Breakthrough Businesses through our Private Business Commission:
“Stamp Duty Reserve Tax (SDRT) is highly distortive, affecting decisions about share turnover, suppressing share prices, and biasing investors against UK-listed equities at a moment when we need the exact opposite – something that also biases entrepreneurs against listing in, or indeed setting up in the UK. It disproportionately punishes marginal investments too. Whereas Corporation Tax taxes the return on investments and relieves the cost of investing through allowances, SDRT has no such allowances and effectively taxes both the investment itself and the return on it, even when those returns are negative.”
It’s not just a matter of tax, though. The exchange remains more highly regulated than many of its competitors. Victor Riparbelli, founder of UK-based $2 billion AI unicorn Synthesia, recently tore into the LSE, describing it as “more like a hospice than a stock exchange,” lamenting the City’s preference for rent-seeking over innovation. Riparbelli isn’t threatening to leave, but he is articulating what many founders quietly think but often won’t say – at least, not publicly.
To be fair, there are pockets of understanding in the current Government (as there were in the previous one) about the scope of the challenge. As the Science Minister Lord Vallance said only yesterday:
“We are streamlining listing and prospectus rules, removing outdated restrictions on follow-on capital, and have launched PISCES – a new stock-exchange model to help private companies scale and provide a stepping-stone to public markets”...“We are pushing better regulation, including through the work of the Regulatory Innovation Office which has cleared away barriers in four technology areas and will expand its work over the next year.”
The stakes couldn’t be higher. Britain excels at creating startups – we raised over £8 billion in the first half of 2025, more than France and Germany combined. But we’re losing companies at the scale-up stage. If we want to remain a globally significant economy of the future, we need to fix that – pronto.
Now, I’m afraid, the ugly – and it’s connected.
In the same week London slumped in the IPO rankings, a debate erupted about the economic contribution immigrants make to the UK. On Sunday, Hannah Prevett, Associate Business Editor of The Sunday Times, made the business case for immigration and shared her personal story on LinkedIn, which is worth reading if you missed it.
But here’s why it matters for our capital markets crisis: you can’t fix the IPO drought without securing the fundamental building blocks of growth, which include, among other things, having the talent pipeline to create IPO-ready companies in the first place.
According to The Economist, Synthesia only exists in London because Victor Riparbelli wanted to move to California but the US denied him a visa. Our latest Job Creators data makes this concrete. Hannah shared the numbers in her column:
“Analysis of Britain’s fastest-growing companies from The Entrepreneurs Network in 2024 showed that 39% have at least one foreign-born founder or co-founder. That is far out of proportion to the roughly 14.5% of the general population born overseas, and early indications suggest the figure will be higher still for 2025.”
Somehow it looks like I managed to end on a positive note. Let’s double down on this. And if you need another dose of optimism, watch Jensen Huang talk up Britain in an interview with Faisal Islam.
Blick 101
Our Corporate Partner Blick Rothenberg is hosting a breakfast roundtable with the esteemed Centre for the Analysis of Taxation on how our tax system should evolve to meet the needs of a modern, competitive economy. Our Patron, Chris Hulatt, co-founder of Octopus Group, will be on the panel. It would be great to see you there. Find out more here.
Connect 10
Our friends at Enterprise Nation reached out following the launch of Supply Connect, a free national programme supported by JPMorgan Chase. It provides practical support for small and micro businesses to get them fit to supply and win public sector contracts.
I hope it’s useful. Relatedly, on the back of a chat with Number 10, I’m collating a list of all the useful, free resources that are out there which support entrepreneurs. I know not all the best things in life are free, but it’s a good place to start. Drop me a message if you have anything to recommend.
Three Big Ideas #44
Three Big Ideas is our fortnightly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.
This week, Eamonn Ives suggests raising the cost caps that incentivise spurious legal claims against infrastructure projects, Philip Salter argues that hikes to H-1B visa fees present an opportunity for Britain to attract priced-out talent, and Anastasia Bektimirova reflects on an evening of technology vibes.
Following Suit
Before I share my thoughts on policy, I want to hear yours!
Specifically, if you’re an entrepreneur and you haven’t completed our latest survey, now’s the time. This really is one of the best ways to get your voice heard. Last time around we secured strong press coverage, and all the main parties reached out to find out what they can do to appeal to founders.
If you’re not a founder or have already filled it in, I’d encourage you to share it with your network. A quick post in a WhatsApp or Slack group really does help.
On the Cards
The big news today is that the Government will be bringing in digital IDs. Like Tony Blair, the last Prime Minister to try to bring a version of them in, Keir Starmer is framing the policy around illegal migration, which given the political climate isn’t surprising, but overlooks its wider benefits.
First things first, digital IDs would not plunge Britain into a totalitarian state. There has been much talk about Estonia in the announcement, whose experience has shown to many liberals (with a small “l”) across the political spectrum, including Lib Dem leader Ed Davey, that this isn’t to be feared.
In fact, a digital identity could offer greater liberty than the current system, where data sits across numerous databases with varying degrees of security and can be accessed without record. In advanced digital states, by contrast, you can see exactly who has accessed your data and why. (Even so, I don’t think it’s absolutely required that they’re mandatory for them to be a success in the UK.)
It would also make life easier. As I argued back in 2020:
“The relationship between the state and business owners in the UK and Estonia is starkly different. For example, in the UK the National Audit Office (NAO) has found that there are more than 20 ways of identifying individuals and businesses across 10 departments and agencies, with no standard format for recording data such as name, address and date of birth. This wastes business owners’ time, and leads to delays and errors. It also means that the government doesn’t understand the UK business population as well as it could.”
In Estonia, digital reforms built on digital ID save business owners around 12 million hours every year. Matching this in the UK would equate to about 430 million hours annually. And it’s not just about bureaucracy. Digital states also allow efficiencies and innovation in healthcare, welfare, justice, education, and civic engagement more effectively. The lessons of how digital states coped with lockdowns compared with others shouldn’t be forgotten.
But things get really exciting when you consider what’s around the corner. As the newly minted Special Adviser for Britain’s Science Department Kirsty Innes and I argued years ago, we could soon see a proactive, one-stop-shop for government services that anticipate citizens’ needs – whether renewing a passport, filing taxes, or receiving tailored healthcare – rather than forcing people to navigate dozens of disconnected systems.
We wrote that in an essay collection that included a foreword from Tony Blair, who, of course, failed to bring in ID cards (for both technical and messaging reasons). While most discussion today in Westminster has focused on the negative case for not bringing them in, we shouldn’t forget the positive argument: this is the first step to ending bureaucracy.
Way to Make a Living
In case you missed it, we’re hiring a new Researcher or Senior Researcher to join the team. The deadline is this Sunday. Find out more here.
Wise Words
On Thursday we hosted a small roundtable with our Adviser Iain Butler, Head of Innovation Incentives at Buzzacott, to dissect the R&D Tax Credits. We’re going to produce a short briefing off the back of the roundtable, with lessons for policymakers. If you’re keen to share your experiences and insights with us anonymously – whether good, bad or somewhere in between – drop me an email with your thoughts.
Subscribers to our Policy Updates newsletter will receive the briefing in their inboxes. If you’d like to host a similar deep dive on a policy area relevant to entrepreneurs, just let me know.
Message from our Partner
Corporate Partners Blick Rothenberg and the Centre for the Analysis of Taxation (CenTax) are hosting a high-impact breakfast debate bringing together successful entrepreneurs, ultra-high-net-worth individuals, and heads of tax and finance to have a discussion around how our tax system should evolve to meet the needs of a modern, competitive economy. Taking place on Wednesday 15 October, this will be a unique opportunity to help shape the conversation and contribute to meaningful reform. Please note, places are limited.
In the Limelight
It’s been a miserable week for commuters in the capital, and even though strikes on the London Underground are now winding down, the disruption is forecast to have cost the UK economy £230 million in lost productivity.
Whether or not the actual figure hits almost a quarter of a billion pounds, one thing is certain, the final amount will have been markedly reduced by an unlikely saviour from Silicon Valley: Neutron Holdings, Inc – or, Lime.
During the strikes, the number of Lime bike trips rocketed by 74%, with a 40% increase in trip duration and a 35% increase in distance covered. While by no means a perfect substitute for the Tube, it’s proof that choice and competition are an unalloyed good for consumers.
Whether the next disruption comes from strikes or something else, we know that e-bikes make transport systems more robust – antifragile, even. This also points towards the benefits of the UK becoming a testbed nation for more technologies from around the world. As we argued in The Way of the Future:
“[F]or the UK to become the most attractive place for innovative investments, it needs to do all it can to support domestic demand. This means making the political decisions that enable the adoption of new technologies.”
At this point, I’m acutely aware that readers based outside the M25 may only have so much sympathy for Londoners’ week of transport woe. Leodensians, (in)famously, go without a mass-transit system 365 days a year. Indeed, perhaps the biggest lesson for policymakers is therefore that the temporary hit to productivity from reduced agglomeration facing Londoners this week is anything but for those in our nation’s other cities. As Tom Forth wrote back in 2019, the lack of public transport effectively makes Birmingham an economically small city.
This doesn’t necessarily need to come at a huge cost to the public purse. Through an innovative programme of finance, funding and value capture, London’s businesses and future passenger revenues contributed around two-thirds of the cost of building the Elizabeth Line. The Government is already exploring a privately funded Birmingham-Manchester rail link. Full steam ahead, please!
For more food for thought, check out The Economist’s Mike Bird’s discussion of Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway (MTR) rail and property model for building transport infrastructure by capturing land value.
(New)sletter
This week, Callum Anderson, the Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, launched a newsletter on LinkedIn. Commons & Capital will offer a regular look at the overlap of markets, policy and politics – through a centre-left Labour lens, which is exactly what we’ll be discussing with him and a room full of entrepreneurs and investors on Tuesday.
It got me thinking about other Members of Parliament who produce policy-rich newsletters. The Shadow Minister for Policy Renewal and Development, Neil O’Brien’s Substack, immediately springs to mind. But so too do Liam Byrne’s Fixing Inequality and Jeevun Sandher’s Winning Formulas.
If we zoom out to the Lords, at opposite ends of the economic spectrum, we also have Robert Skidelsky’s Substack and Matt Ridley’s Rational Optimist.
Who did I miss?
Good Graces
I’m delighted to share that Grace Almendras-Castillo – Founder and CEO of Gifftid – has joined us as an Adviser. She is building an AI intelligence and analytics platform that mobilises capital, data, and partnerships to scale underserved SMEs and impact-driven enterprises, which aligns perfectly with our mission.
Grace has been recognised as one of Canada’s Top 50 Women in STEM, a Springboard Enterprises Alum, an EY Entrepreneur of the Year nominee, and a fellow of JLabs and MaRS Discovery District in Toronto.
Grace praises the UK for its highly educated, intelligent community: “Overall, it fits the environment where I can participate in innovation, creation and make a contribution to society.”
Why don’t you join us as an Adviser? Drop me an email if you have any questions.
Message from our Partner
On 8 October, leaders from across finance, defence, technology, and government will gather in the City of London for the Fifth Anniversary of The City Quantum & AI Summit. With its rule of “plain English only”, the Summit is designed to cut through the noise and focus on what matters: the practical business outcomes driven by frontier technologies.
The event will bring together decision-makers shaping the future of finance, security, and technology adoption, to listen to discussions with CEOs from the likes of AWS, Palantir, and Multiverse Computing. Panels will be chaired by senior figures such as Sir Edward Braham (M&G and NED to the UK Treasury), Ian Stuart (CEO of HSBC UK), and General Sir Patrick Sanders (former Chief of the General Staff).
For entrepreneurs and the wider ecosystem, this is a chance to hear directly from board-level leaders on how Quantum and AI are already reshaping industries – and where opportunities lie.
Three Big Ideas #43
Three Big Ideas is our fortnightly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.
This week, Eamonn Ives examines the new Defence Industrial Strategy, Anastasia Bektimirova mulls over a new book contrasting China and the United States, and Philip Salter discusses navigating the politics of immigration.
Shaken, not stirred
With the Deputy Prime Minister’s demise precipitating a full Cabinet reshuffle, it would be easy to focus on the negatives. But this is also an opportunity for the Government to strike out in a new direction. As every founder learns through experience: never let a good crisis go to waste.
Tony Blair articulated this opportunity well with his famous “kaleidoscope speech” in Chicago on 22 April 1999:
"This is a moment to seize. The kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us reorder this world around us."
The Prime Minister must already get this. After all, it’s all too easy to forget that he inherited a Labour Party in crisis. When Jeremy Corbyn was their leader, Labour was polling only in the 20s. Keir Starmer rebranded the party, purged the antisemitism, rebuilt its credibility with business, and decisively won the 2024 election.
While the last 14 months haven’t gone swimmingly, all is not lost. Now’s the time to ditch what isn’t working and lean into what we know will – specifically when it comes to spurring economic growth.
First things first: do no (or at least less) harm. With Angela Rayner gone, it’s time to ditch the worst parts of her Employment Rights Bill. As I wrote back in February, the Government’s own analysis projects its annual cost to businesses to be in the billions. Founders have told us repeatedly that they’re really concerned about the mooted changes. Of course, workers need protection; but they also need jobs in the first place. (Next month, Lord Leigh is chairing a virtual roundtable to discuss the implications of the Government’s Employment Rights Bill on businesses – sign up here.)
Second, we need to get more of the basics right. As we argued in Building Blocks, even marginal policy improvements in a few large areas – such as simplifying our country’s planning rules, rationalising the tax code, or modernising the visa system – would do more to ensure we are genuinely offering the best possible platform from which to unleash the full potential of entrepreneurship and innovation in Britain.
These aren’t only things that the Government could (or should) do, but if I were Starmer I would apply the advice of Steve Jobs to the rest of his term: “Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.”
In truth, you can count the real and lasting achievements of even our most radical Prime Ministers on one hand.
Clement Attlee created the NHS, built the welfare state, co-founded NATO, initiated Britain’s nuclear deterrent and granted independence to India.
Margaret Thatcher privatised major industries, curbed trade union power, deregulated the City and introduced Right to Buy.
Tony Blair secured the Good Friday Agreement, gave the Bank of England independence, introduced the National Minimum Wage and devolved power to the nations.
Starmer’s second phase of this Government should be unapologetically focused on the big things.
To that end, I would point people towards the latest newsletter from the APPG for Entrepreneurship. Penned by my colleague Eamonn Ives, it flags what will definitely be one of the less discussed job moves this week, but that doesn’t make it any less important. John van Reenen, the Chair of the Chancellor’s Council of Economic Advisers will now report directly to Rachel Reeves as an expert adviser. As Eamonn writes:
“One piece of research that has stuck with me over the years is his 2019 paper A Toolkit of Policies to Promote Innovation. Written with the equally distinguished Nicholas Bloom and Heidi Williams, this paper quickly yet comprehensively makes the case for why governments should support endeavours to promote innovation, before evaluating some of the most common ways they try to do so. Specifically, they examine tax policies to favour research and development, government research grants, policies aimed at increasing the supply of human capital focused on innovation, intellectual property policies, and pro-competitive policies.”
Research the Role
We are looking to hire either a new Researcher or Senior Researcher, depending on experience. The successful candidate will be a core member of the team – primarily producing original policy reports and other written outputs, but also contributing on other fronts, such as supporting our events programme and expanding our presence in the policymaking ecosystem.
The ideal candidate will be highly self-motivated with a strong interest in public policy. They will not simply wait to be assigned tasks, but proactively identify new opportunities to drive the policy agenda. We expect applicants to be recent graduates, or to be working in a similar role, or to have already demonstrated the core competencies we’re looking for in another role.
Strong applicants will have shown an active interest in policies and issues that impact entrepreneurs. Most importantly, their values will be in strong alignment with those of The Entrepreneurs Network.
On Reflection
On 18 April 1930, BBC Radio’s 6.30pm news bulletin announced: “Good evening. Today is Good Friday. There is no news,” which was then followed by piano music to fill the remaining time.
As the News and Views section below shows, while the headlines never truly stop, they do have a tendency to slow down over the summer months. In this rare respite from the torrent of politics and policy, I hope you’ll forgive me for turning inwards – not least because we’ve picked up hundreds of new subscribers in recent weeks who might value a bit of a pointer to what we’re all about.
In short, we are the voice of Britain’s most ambitious entrepreneurs. A decade ago, I would never have been so presumptuous to describe ourselves as the voice of anyone but myself; however, over that time we’ve built a network of thousands of entrepreneurs and we’re now pretty confident that we know what keeps entrepreneurs up at night, and what they need from government to succeed.
Just to be one hundred percent sure, we’ve recently teamed up with Public First to conduct quarterly surveys of our network, the latest of which is currently open for responses. If you haven’t done so already, please complete it and consider sharing the opportunity with your networks and on social media.
Demanding supply
One of the challenges that has come with having built such a large and open network is that demand for our events is now outstripping supply. There are three ways that we’re solving this without closing the network or charging for events.
First, we’re being more selective about inviting the right people to the right events. Just this week we hosted a dinner with Ian Sollom MP, the Liberal Democrats’ Spokesperson for Universities and Skills, which had the perfect mix of entrepreneurs, investors, and Tech Transfer Office leaders. Compiling the guest list was made all the easier thanks to attendees having proactively told us which issues they’re interested in. If you haven’t let us know what topics you’re curious about, you can do so by filling out our recently updated and extended Join Us form.
Second, we’re planning more meetups. These are much more open than our more policy-focused events. Watch this space for an ambitious plan to undertake regular events outside of London, as we’re keen to travel the length and breadth of the country. We’re looking for more hosts and partners for our events, so if you’re keen to host us, get in touch.
Finally, for those who are able, becoming a Supporter, Adviser, Patron or Corporate Partner both opens up more events for you, but also supports us to do more for the wider ecosystem. It’s a win-win for everyone. Join us here.
Supplying more
Before signing up, you may want to know a bit more about the scope of what we do. If that’s the case, we have a deck which distils it into a few slides.
While this should give you an overview of what we currently do, I want to also take this opportunity to find out what you think we should be doing more of. We may be more than ten years old, but we’re just as nimble today as on day one. Everything we’ve done, and everything we’re doing now, all started with a simple conversation. As such, the time to share any ideas you have for partnering with us is now. Get in touch.
Three Big Ideas #42
Three Big Ideas is our fortnightly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.
This week, Eamonn Ives writes about novel ideas for funding new infrastructure, Anastasia Bektimirova wonders whether ‘micro-tipping’ will replace subscriptions, and Jessie May Green welcomes the inclusion of small businesses as a focus for COP30.