Three Big Ideas is our weekly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.
In this week, Eamonn Ives urges a rethink to recent changes to Stamp Duty, Philip Salter discusses the importance of getting competition policy right, and Anastasia Bektimirova writes about the risk of losing sight of the scientists who drive progress.
🏡 Eamonn Ives, Research Director
It’s only natural that commentary on last week’s Budget has focused on its headline measures like the rise in employer National Insurance. Sneaking somewhat under the radar, however, were the various changes made to Stamp Duty – the tax people pay when purchasing a house. Currently, first-time buyers pay no tax on properties valued up to £425,000, but from April next year this relief will fall by nearly a third to £300,000. Under the new arrangements, an average two-bedroom London flat for a first-time buyer – price, £440,000 – will incur Stamp Duty of £7,000, almost ten times what it would have been previously.
Stamp Duty is an atrocious tax – destroying 75p of wealth for every £1 it raises – and reducing the generosity of the nil-rate only makes it worse. One of its most malign effects is the friction it creates in the housing market, by discouraging people from selling up even when it may be in their best interest to do so. This in turn renders labour markets less flexible, hitting economic output in the long run. The Chancellor made clear in the Budget that taxes needed to go up in order to balance the books but this short-term cash grab could well end up being pennywise yet pound foolish if – and when – it drags on growth, year after year.
There’s still time to rethink this, and with Labour’s relatively younger, unpropertied base disproportionately losing out from it, it’s not unimaginable that they’ll change their minds. But that won’t happen without a fight – let’s hope it starts here.
♟️ Philip Salter, Founder
There are gaps in policy making that need bridging, as entrepreneurs aren’t always happy to talk directly to government about their business concerns. Take competition policy. Speak with any of the UK’s most ambitious tech startups you’ll hear concerns about the Competition and Markets Authority, but most entrepreneurs don’t raise their head above the parapet to say this. Not least as it may prejudice future M&A activity. That’s why I raised these concerns with Jonny Reynolds this morning at a roundtable with entrepreneurs and business groups.
First and foremost, entrepreneurs’ are worried that their path to exit could be blocked by the CMA. While politicians may dream of every startup becoming a unicorn, in reality very few tech companies are destined to be a Markit, Wise or Deliveroo. For many entrepreneurs, an exit to a bigger player in tech will be the end game. This isn’t just a UK thing – it’s the way all tech ecosystems work, and it’s critical for incentivising entrepreneurs to start, employees to join and investors to back these tech tech startups.
This isn’t new. Back in 2021 we wrote Better Together, which made the case for the procompetitive benefits of M&A in tech. It drew on cross-country studies which find that restrictions on takeovers can have strong negative effects on VC activity to argue that startup formation and venture capital investment is extremely sensitive to the availability of exits.
With the rise of AI and the need for compute, we’re also hearing a growing concern from founders of startups that want to enter into development partnerships with big tech companies. Strict regulatory requirements on partnership are making this close to impossible. Clearly, in the first instance the CMA needs to provide some guidance on the sorts of partnerships that would cause them concern so that entrepreneurs and investors know what the rules are.
👩🔬 Anastasia Bektimirova, Researcher
A journal from the National Academy of Sciences and Arizona State University surveyed 784 people in the US science and technology policy community to explore their career paths, motivations, activities, and opinions on how the field is changing. Commenting on the release, the publication’s editor-in-chief said:
“Today, those in the field are far less likely to think of themselves as working for science (e.g., advocating for more research funding) than to see themselves as taking a wider societal role, such as influencing policy and regulation and bringing science to society.”
To me, this trend rings alarm bells, because it presents the risk of losing sight of the very scientists who drive scientific progress. The main question guiding science policy – what is needed to generate more value from science? – is fundamentally about “working for science” and scientists.
And there are real opportunities to grasp here. Just take the plight of junior scientists. Globally, the academic system is failing early-career scholars. The UK is no exception. A country that becomes the best place in the world to start a scientific career will gain strategic advantage in science. There is no reason why this country can’t be the UK. As former government science and tech adviser James Phillips rightly notes, this is a “niche opportunity or resource that the UK can have that is globally overlooked.” It’s high time for science policy work, both outside and inside of government, to wake up to this.
Industry bodies representing the interests of universities and scientific organisations that are members of such bodies abound, and quite a few think tanks ponder how to seed science and tech progress throughout government and public services. But advocating for the scientist and better organisation of scientific practice might not always look the same as putting the interests of a scientific organisation as a business first. The Metascience Unit inside the government is a good start, but we could benefit from directing more brainpower to the same questions outside it.
After weeks of speculation, on Wednesday the Budget was finally delivered. You’ll have to come to one of our events for my lukewarm takes on its impact on farms, private schools, social care, or whatever comes next – but given weeks of campaigning, it would be remiss if I didn’t round it off with our thoughts on Capital Gains Tax (CGT) and Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR).
It was a busy few weeks for us. Topping out at over 1,000 responses, the letter that many of you signed and shared made headlines across the media, while behind the scenes we were connecting concerned founders with journalists hungry for to hear from those at the coalface.
Having spoken with lots of entrepreneurs following post-Budget, the general sentiment seems to be: could have been worse, should have been better. Whether you think it was necessary or not, given that the burden of taxation has increased for pretty much everyone across Britain, a collective “phew!” is understandable. It wasn’t just entrepreneurs though. According to Patrick Maguire (Paywall – The Times), in the focus groups of Tory-Labour switchers Downing Street conducted on Wednesday night the word that recurred was ‘relief’.
As I wrote in reaction: “Entrepreneurs will be somewhat relieved that the Capital Gains Tax (CGT) rate wasn’t hiked as high as many feared. Similarly, there were rumours that Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR) would be scrapped, so the worst-case scenario was avoided. Nevertheless, BADR will still be ratcheted up over the coming years, meaning Britain will become an increasingly unattractive place to both start and exit a company.
We know that many entrepreneurs are already looking to move their business from the UK – and this only makes that move more compelling. This is why 1,250 of the UK’s most ambitious entrepreneurs signed our letter against such changes.
It’s not just entrepreneurs who will be impacted. Many fledgling startups give employees stock options or shares as part of their compensation package as they cannot compete with the higher salaries offered by established big corporates. Today’s changes will reduce this incentive, making it even harder for startups to attract the talent they need to scale, while denying workers the chance to own a piece of Britain’s growing companies.
Instead of hiking BADR, the Treasury should have retargeted the relief at founders who are scaling businesses, and have made it unlimited to incentivise the world’s best entrepreneurs to start, scale and sell multiple businesses in Britain.”
Our letter – alongside others, of course – may have spooked the Government from going further on changes to BADR and CGT. I write ‘may’ because the scrapping of BADR and hikes to CGT were in part trailed in order to manage expectations. However, as has been the case for decades now, worst-case scenarios are also floated to test the public reaction. Politicians only know the limits if we’re vocal enough. This is clearly a suboptimal way to make policy – after all, there are plenty of vocal groups that the government shouldn’t listen to – but that only makes it more critical for us to play the game of politics when there is so much at stake.
In her speech, the Chancellor specifically said she was committed to creating a positive environment for entrepreneurship and wants to work with entrepreneurs to do this. This was a direct nod to all of you who’ve made so much noise over the last few weeks.
The hard work starts now. We need to build out the evidence base so we can make a proactive case to the Government, the opposition and civil servants on tax and growth. When it comes down to it, we all want the same thing: entrepreneurs making us all richer – both through the stuff they build and people they employ, but also through the taxes they pay as they scale and exit.
And while the Office for Budget Responsibility’s growth forecasts are depressing – remember, they don’t take into account important forthcoming policy changes such as planning reform and other areas we have been working on for over the last decade. As Rodolfo Rosini, entrepreneur and Adviser to The Entrepreneurs Network, argues: “Britain is a $2.3 trillion opportunity.”
If you want to help us make the world a better place, drop me an email now with details of how you want to lend a hand. We’re a small organisation, but as the last few weeks have shown, when we unite we can make ourselves heard when it really matters.
It’s not just CGT, of course. My colleagues Eamonn Ives and Anastasia Bektimirova responded on Employers’ National Insurance Contributions, Business Rates reform and R&D spending, and there will be plenty more to unpack over the coming weeks. If you want to join me for more Budget chat. I’ll be chairing an event at Home Grown on Tuesday morning (request a place here), or you can scroll down for a smaller roundtable we’re hosting with Evelyn Partners.
Paper Cut
Anastasia has teamed up with Alex Chalmers of Air Street Capital to write a cutting article on how to (not) do policy. Death by a thousand roundtables is a must-read taxonomy for anyone involved in trying to change policy. Anastasia would love to hear any feedback you have – as long as you don’t want to convene a conversation with stakeholders.
Invest in Women
We’re partnering with the Invest in Women taskforce on a report focusing on angel investment. While we tried to get to as many parts of the UK as possible in our recent roundtables, we appreciate that we couldn’t hit every postcode. That’s why we’re opening up the opportunity for you to feed into the report. You’ll have to be quick though – the Call for Evidence will close on Saturday 9 November. Please feel free to share among your networks or on social media. Everything you need to know is here.
Be Our Host
We’re busy planning a lot more breakfasts and dinners with Britain’s leading entrepreneurs – often featuring a senior politician. We have a number of organisations who regularly host us, but we’re looking for three more to join us as hosts for 2025. Get in touch if you would like to discuss how this works.
Today, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered the Autumn Budget. In short, it entails more spending, more tax rises and more borrowing. Growth forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility, meanwhile, are anaemic. We issued the snap reaction to the Budget not long after she finished addressing the Commons, and we’ll be digging into things in more depth later in the week — so stay tuned by subscribing to our Friday newsletter if you aren’t already.
📊 What does today’s Budget mean for Britain’s startup community?
— The Entrepreneurs Network (@TenThinkTank) October 30, 2024
Here are our snap judgements on some of the key announcements for entrepreneurs across the country.
Thread below! 🧵👇 #Budget2024 pic.twitter.com/r3gGdOpgl9
Capital Gains Tax and Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR)
Philip Salter, Founder of The Entrepreneurs Network, said:
“Entrepreneurs will be somewhat relieved that the Capital Gains Tax (CGT) rate wasn’t hiked as high as many feared. Similarly, there were rumours that Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR) would be scrapped, so the worst-case scenario was avoided. Nevertheless, BADR will still be ratcheted up over the coming years, meaning Britain will become an increasingly unattractive place to both start and exit a company.
We know that many entrepreneurs are already looking to move their business from the UK – and this only makes that move more compelling. This is why 1,250 of the UK’s most ambitious entrepreneurs signed our letter against such changes.
It’s not just entrepreneurs who will be impacted. Many fledgling startups give employees stock options or shares as part of their compensation package as they cannot compete with the higher salaries offered by established big corporates. Today’s changes will reduce this incentive, making it even harder for startups to attract the talent they need to scale, while denying workers the chance to own a piece of Britain’s growing companies.
Instead of hiking BADR, the Treasury should have retargeted the relief at founders who are scaling businesses, and have made it unlimited to incentivise the world’s best entrepreneurs to start, scale and sell multiple businesses in Britain.”
Employer National Insurance Contributions
Eamonn Ives, Research Director of The Entrepreneurs Network, said:
“In a move that is expected to raise around £25 billion a year, employer National Insurance Contributions will increase by 1.2 percentage points to a rate of 15% and the threshold at which they start paying it was cut from £9,100 to £5,000.
The Chancellor might insist that this is not a tax on working people, but while it is true that it is employers who will bear the ‘legal incidence’ of the tax rise, economic evidence makes clear that increases like this are ultimately factored into lower wages for workers.
In short, and coupled with other measures such as the rise in the National Minimum Wage, it will become more expensive to take on staff, especially for those entrepreneurs employing people at the lower end of the earnings ladder. We shouldn’t be surprised if firms rethink hiring plans or water down pay rises.”
Business Rates reform
Eamonn Ives, Research Director of The Entrepreneurs Network, said:
“The promise to transform Business Rates will be watched closely by Britain’s entrepreneurs, who recognise them as one of the biggest impediments to growth. Our current system punishes those who improve their premises and the infrequency of revaluations means that rates can become out of step with market conditions.
Yet some of the measures announced today – such as a freeze for the small business multiplier and the introduction of a specific sectoral multiplier – only add further complexity to Business Rates. A proper overhaul, as we have called for in the past, would instead see the underlying land values taxed, and we encourage the Government to be bold as it develops its thinking on this policy.”
R&D spending
Anastasia Bektimirova, Researcher at The Entrepreneurs Network, said:
“At a time when the public finances are so stretched, the protection of funding for R&D spending and tax reliefs should be welcomed by Britain’s innovators. Only by bringing forward more innovation can we grow the economy in the long run and develop solutions to improving public services.
What starts as basic research can then spin out from universities as innovative companies. It is very important to protect that, so the £6.1 billion for core research is particularly positive, especially with little fiscal room on spending.
It would be a mistake to prematurely interpret the silence on any major AI-related announcements as a lack of ambition. The Budget has made it clear that the AI Opportunities Action Plan will be published soon, which will set out the Government’s plans – and should match the ambitions of the sector.”
On the new Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund:
“The new Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund is a welcome intervention into fundamentals that will help keep more life sciences innovation in the UK as it is scaling. Limited manufacturing infrastructure is often cited as a critical factor prompting innovators to relocate.”
On the new R&D Missions Programme:
“A new R&D Missions Programme shows that, as expected, the five missions will be an important framing for innovators trying to make a compelling case when engaging with the Government. It will be particularly interesting to see the details of how the growth mission will be framed here, as much of R&D work naturally fits it already.”
Over the last few weeks we’ve been stuck on repeat – making the case again and again for why the Chancellor must think twice about the impact that rumoured changes to CGT and BADR would have upon entrepreneurs and their employees (who are all too often overlooked in these debates). Over 1,200 entrepreneurs have now signed this letter. Here are the first 1,000!
The letter continues to get lots of press coverage – including in City A.M. this week – and we’re busy connecting entrepreneurs with journalists. One thing’s for sure: the Government can’t say that they weren’t warned.
I’m sure we’ll have more to say on this topic after the Budget, and a lot more work to do on this in the coming months and years, but today I want to write about the lessons from the last few weeks – not so much for the Government, but for us.
First, we need to be more vocal in explaining the policies that matter most to entrepreneurs. There is a lot that unites Britain’s most ambitious entrepreneurs and we need to be proactively making the case for what these things are.
Second, we need more evidence for why these things are important. For example, I’ve been pitching an idea for years to survey the foreign-born founders of Britain’s fastest-growing startups right as they begin their businesses. Foreign-born founders tell us later on that Entrepreneurs’ Relief was a critical issue when they started their business in the UK, but having data from those who are still just starting out would be invaluable.
Third, we shouldn’t go overboard on the doom mongering. Britain is still the best place in Europe to start and grow a business. We are rightly respected around the world for our fairness and the rule of law. We have an incredible history of innovation that hasn’t stopped – just consider Demis Hassabis’ Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his company’s revolutionary work on proteins.
To be clear, we agree with Matt Clifford when he says that the UK could go back to being pretty much the richest country in the world per capita – at least as rich as the US. Whether this Budget is a step towards that dream, or one away from it, we’ll keep working to make it a reality.
Taper Away
This week we invited Shivani H. Menon of Onward to contribute to our weekly Substack Three Big Ideas series. As we’ve explained in the past, Britain’s VAT registration threshold incentivises small businesses to stay small. This threshold instantly burdens any business that only just breaches it with a significant marginal cost. As a result, we see a bunching of businesses that turn over slightly less than the threshold, as many deliberately stop working when they approach it.
To get around this problem, Shivani suggests VAT is tapered: “The threshold could be reduced to £30,000 at a 1% VAT rate, increasing gradually until it reaches a rate of 20% for businesses turning over £140,000 or more.” It’s not a new idea, but one that deserves serious consideration. As I understand it, it would be technically feasible for HMRC to do this and it would be a good compromise between economists and the small business lobby groups.
Rights Ideas?
There is huge concern about the Employment Rights Bill. By the Government’s own analysis, it would cost businesses a whopping £5 billion a year to implement, and the FSB has come out fighting, calling the legislation a “rushed job, clumsy, chaotic and poorly planned.”
Now you’ll have the chance to have your say by submitting your views in writing to the House of Commons Public Bill Committee, which is going to consider this Bill. Naturally, we’re planning to respond, but our policymakers will be served all the better by also hearing directly from those who it will impact most. Find out more here.
Our Newest Adviser
Blick Rothenberg has joined us as a Corporate Partner. Malli Kini, who leads their entrepreneurs practice will become our latest Adviser.
Before joining Blick Rothenberg as a Partner in March 2024, Malli spent over 15 years in the Big 4 (PwC and EY) within their London private client teams. Prior to that, he had an entirely different career as an orthopaedic surgeon in the NHS which he says was much like carpentry – lots of hammers, screws and nails!
Find out how you or your company could join us here.
On Friday 11 October, we issued an open letter to the Chancellor, following reports that changes to Capital Gains Tax will be enacted at the forthcoming Autumn Budget. Below are the names of the first 1,000 entrepreneurs and business owners to sign it. You can still read the letter, and add your name, by clicking here.
Philip Salter – Founder, The Entrepreneurs Network; Martin Frost CBE – Co-Founder, CMR Surgical; Giles Andrews OBE – Co-Founder, Zopa; Rishi Khosla – Co-Founder & CEO, OakNorth Bank; Oana Jinga – Co-Founder, Dexory; Richard Davies – CEO, Allica Bank; Stephen Phillips – Founder, Zappi; Saasha Celestial-One – Co-Founder, Olio; Justin Basini – Co-Founder & CEO, The ClearScore Group; Emilie Vanpoperinghe – Co-Founder & CEO, Oddbox; Victor Riparbelli Rasmussen – Co-Founder & CEO, Synthesia; Matthew Hare OBE – Founder & CEO, Zzoomm; Adrian Negoita – Co-Founder & CTO, Dexory; Nazim Valimahomed – Founder & CPO, Kroo Bank; Miguel Martinez – Co-Founder, Signal AI; David Benigson – Founder & CEO, Signal AI; Aleksandra Wlodek – CEO, Constructive Bio; Jordan Brompton – Founder, myenergi; Christoph Rieche – Co-Founder & CEO, iwoca; Robin Tombs – Co-Founder & CEO, Yoti; Tim Chong – Co-Founder & CEO, Yonder; Thesokkumar Jivajirajah – Co-Founder, Yonder; David Jarvis – Founder & CEO, Griffin Bank; Jamie Beaumont – Founder, Playter; Oliver Tonkin – Co-Founder & CEO, BCB Group; Brad Goodall – Founder & CEO, Banked; Alexander Mifsud – Co-Founder & CEO, Weavr.io; Benjamina Bollag – Founder & CEO, Uncommon Bio; Jeff Lynn – Co-Founder, Republic Europe; Sara Murray OBE – Founder & CEO, Big Technologies; Nicholas New – Founder & CEO, Optalysys; Eddie Harrison – Co-Founder, Navro; Melissa Morris – Founder & CEO, Lantum; James Dean – Founder & CEO, Sensat; Nigel Purves – Co-Founder & CEO, Wayhome; Darren Jobling – Co-Founder & CEO, ZeroLight; John Goodall – Founder & CEO, Landbay; Richard Mabey – Founder & CEO, Juro; Bundeep Singh Rangar – Founder & President, PremFina; Phelim Bradley – Co-Founder & CEO, Prolific; Simon Jones – Founder, Baanx; Robert Griffin – Co-Founder & CEO, MIRACL; Whitney Hawkings – Founder & CEO, FLOWERBX; Andrew Yates – Co-Founder & CEO, FullCircl; Justin Fitzpatrick – Co-Founder, FullCircl; Michael Nabarro – Co-Founder & CEO, Spektrix; Ali Afshar – Co-Founder & CEO, Mytos; Matthew Dreaper – Co-Founder, Oxford Space Systems; Charlotte Guzzo – Founder & COO, Sano Genetics; Will Stewart – Co-Founder & CEO, Northflank; Iain Griffin – Founder & CEO, Seatfrog; Carsten Schaltz – Co-Founder, Stotles; JP Doumeng – Co-Founder & CEO, Napo Pet Insurance; Steve Coulson – Founder & CEO, Kitt Technology; Will Goodwin – Co-Founder, Tumelo; Ross Harper – CEO, Limbic; Dev Amratia – Co-Founder & CEO, nPlan; Alan Mosca – Co-Founder & CTO, nPlan; Chris McCullough – Co-Founder & CEO, Rota Geek; Asi Sharabi – Co-Founder & CEO, Wonderbly; Aldo Monteforte – Founder & CEO, The Floow; Anton Derlyatka – Co-Founder & CEO, Sweatcoin; Anthony Eskinazi – Founder & CEO, JustPark; Chris Edson – Co-Founder & CEO, Second Nature; Nick Jones – Co-Founder & CEO, Zumo; Louise Birritteri – Founder & CEO, Pikl; Alex Depledge MBE – Founder & CEO, Resi; Richard Moross – Founder & CEO, moo.com; George Graham – Co-Founder & CEO, Wolf & Badger; Deepak Ravindran – Co-Founder, Oddbox; Ashutosh Bhatt – Founder & CEO, Pillar; Laurence Kemball-Cook – Founder & CEO, Pavegen; Sarah McVittie – Co-Founder, Dressipi; Naimish Gohil – Founder & CEO, Satchel; Tara Chandra – Co-Founder, Here We Flo; Timothy Brownstone – Founder & CEO, KYMIRA; Anna Maxwell – Founder & CEO, Maxwellia; David Greenberg – Founder, Eave; Sabrina Del Prete – Founder & CEO, Kore Labs; Tim Antos – Founder & CEO, Kokoon Technology; Ann Kramer – Founder & CEO, The Electrospinning Company; Mats Stigzelius – Founder & Chair, Takumi; Jack Hylands – Founder, FourthRev; Huw Davies – Co-Founder & CEO, Ozone API; Freddie Green – Co-Founder, Minimum; Jonathan Summerfield – Founder & CEO, Xiatech; Liam Chennells – Co-Founder & CEO, Detected; David Newton – Founder & COO, Akrivia Health; Amon Ghaiumy – Co-Founder & CEO, Ophelos; Nicola Piercy – Co-Founder & Director, Stripe & Stare; Katie Lopes – Founder, Stripe & Stare; Mark McDermott – Co-Founder & CEO, ScreenCloud; Ellie Webb – Founder & CEO, Caleño Drinks; Merilee Karr – Founder & CEO, UnderTheDoormat Group; Kelly McCabe – Founder, Perci Health; Alexander Lempka – Co-Founder & CEO, Connect Earth; Jon Walsh – Co-Founder & CEO, Bio&Me; Will Mason – Founder & CEO, Infact Systems; Nick Perrett – Founder & CEO, Prosper; Pip Murray – Founder & CEO, Pip & Nut; Toby Austin – Founder & CEO, Beauhurst; Johannes Solzbach – Co-Founder & CEO, Clustermarket; Zoe Watkiss – Founder, SunGod; Laura Towart – Founder & CEO, My Personal Therapeutics; Imogen Wethered – Founder, Qudini; Eliot Brooks – Founder & CEO, CocoonCarbon; Fraser Smeaton – Founder & CEO, MorphCostumes; Tamzin Lent – Founder & CEO, Where You At; Llewellyn Kinch – Founder & CEO, Switchd; Anthony Rose – Co-Founder & CEO, SeedLegals; Rikke Rosenlund – CEO, BorrowMyDoggy; Lyz Swanton – Co-Founder & COO, Qured; Alex Templeton – Co-Founder & CEO, Qured; Karl Deady – Founder, Cinos; Dr Bruce Bratley – Founder & CEO, First Mile; Lisa Robinson – Founder & CEO, companiions; Stephen Crosher – Co-Founder & CEO, RheEnergise; Graham Cook – Co-Founder & CFO, RheEnergise; Duncan Cheatle – Founder & CEO, Learn Amp; Constantine Karampatsos – Founder & CEO, Good Life Sorted; Jing Ouyang – Co-Founder, Patchwork Health; Tim Maughan – Founder, Add to Event; Wayne Lloyd – Founder & CEO, Smarter Contracts; Brian Harrison – Co-Founder & CEO, Swoon Editions; Raj Meghani – Co-Founder, BLOCKAPT; Varun Bhanot – Co-Founder & CEO, MAGIC AI; Raphael Chow – Founder, WeVat; Lyndsey Simpson – Founder & CEO, 55/Redefined; Pip Wilson – Co-Founder & CEO, Amicable; Hon Lung Keith Tsui – Co-Founder & CEO, Medwise AI; Matthew McNeill Love – Founder, Thursday Dating; Matt Jonns – Founder, Founder + Lightning; Simon Banks – Founder & Director, CSL Group; Botty Dimanov – Co-Founder & CEO, Tenyks; Maleakhi Wijaya – Co-Founder & CEO, Tenyks; David Boon – Founder & CEO, Dijuno; Claire Harrison – Founder & CEO, GetSetGo Group; Ben Prouty – Co-Founder & CEO, PonchoPay; Gabriele Musella – Co-Founder & CEO, Coinrule; Oleg Giberstein – Co-Founder & COO, Coinrule; Sarah Bolt – Co-Founder & CEO, Humankind Ventures; Terry Canning – Co-Founder & CEO, CattleEye; Beth Michael – Co-Founder, Streeva; Johnny Paterson – Co-Founder, Dr.PAWPAW; Ioannis Agiomyrgiannakis – Founder & CEO, Altered; Pauline Paterson – Founder & CEO, Dr.PAWPAW; Caroline Goodman – Founder & CEO, Institutional Protection Services; Amanda Thomson – Founder & CEO, Thomson & Scott; Benedikt von Thüngen – Founder, Sanome; Harriet Hastings – Founder, Biscuiteers; Dr Diana Hodgins MBE – Founder & CEO, Dynamic Metrics; Charlotte Pearce – Founder & CEO, Inkpact; Sahil Sethi – Co-Founder & CEO, Maji; Gary Jones – Co-Founder & CEO, MediMusic; Rupert Schneider – Founder & CEO, Gardenia Technologies; Dominic Hall – Co-Founder & CTO, Biographica; Emma Beresford – Founder & CEO, International Energy Products; Anam Rahman – Founder & CEO, Kavida AI; Jinesh Vohra – Founder & CEO, Sprive; Glen Calvert – Co-Founder & CEO, Kaizan; Lucinda O'Connor – Founder & CEO, Clothes Doctor; Katerina Pljaskovova – Founder & CEO, Fair HQ; Daniel Howitt – Co-Founder & CEO, Recap; Richard Turnbull – Founder & CTO, Officely; Tina Warner-Keogh – Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Warner’s Distillery; Matt Milligan – Co-Founder, Uhubs; Josie Baum – Co-Founder, ARC Club; Daniel Gill – Founder & CEO, Augnet; Erika Brodnock MBE – Co-Founder & CEO, Kinhub; Jacob Herandi – Co-Founder & COO, Kinhub; Lucy Read – Founder, LA Personal Products; Gus Tugendhat – Founder, Tussell; Jay Orlean-Taub – Co-Founder & CEO, Sipgood; Rushina Shah – Founder, Insane Grain; Neil Taub – Co-Founder, ZoomDoc; Jenny James – Co-Founder, Findr; Cindy van Niekerk – Founder & CEO, Umazi; Irene McAleese – Co-Founder & CSO, See.Sense; Tariq Attia – CEO, IW Capital; Sarah Montgomery – Co-Founder & CEO, Infyos; Richard Bertin – Founder & CEO, All in Place Group; Lara Mott – Co-Founder & CEO, ImproveWell; Areeb Siddiqui – Founder & CEO, Kestrl; Dr Cristian Gherhes – Founder & CEO, Lexverify; Dr Fozia Saleem – CEO, Magnitude Biosciences; Wai Foong Ng – Founder, Matchable; Aaron Thomas – Founder, Yum Bug; Janthana Kaenprakhamroy – Founder & CEO, Tapoly; Jonny Philp – Co-Founder & Director, Nursem Skincare; Kate Jillings – Co-Founder, ToucanTech; Dr Paul Reynolds – Founder & CEO, FSD Active; Ann O'Neill – Co-Founder & CEO, Adora Digital Health; Tom Barltrop – Co-Founder, SuperFi; Chris Jackson – Co-Founder, OptAxe; Nadia Simonds – Founder, Lune & Wild; Philip Callow – Founder & CEO, Rosetta Risk Management; Alex Fisher – CEO, Saturn Bioponics; Leo Kellgren-Parker – Founder & CEO, LIVR; Mark Hindmarsh – Co-Founder, 2B Enterprising; Sarah Dowzell – Co-Founder, Natural HR; Jason Dowzell – Founder & CEO, Natural HR; Ben Maughan – Co-Founder, Add to Event; Jason Mohr – Founder & CEO, LoveJunk; Tamsin Dewhurst – Founder & CEO, Uptree; Seb Wallace – Co-Founder, Further; Olivier Scaramucci – Founder & CEO, Boutique Brands; Rachael Grimaldi – Co-Founder & CEO, CardMedic; Alistair Sergeant – Founder & CEO, Niico; Anant Prakash – Founder & CEO, Odysse; Edward Hall – Founder & CEO, Qualification Check; Alex Freeman – Co-Founder & CEO, Stance Fitness; Steve Monk – Founder, Good Guys Bakehouse; Oliver Noakes – Founder, Boulders; Sam Peters – Co-Founder & CEO, Vyde; Akber Tahir – Founder & CEO, Pharmovo AI; Priya Guliani – Co-Founder & CEO, EarthID; Alla Ouvarova – Founder & CEO, Two Chicks; Chloe Sweden – Founder & CEO, Lowr; Dino Bertolis – Founder, Breez Technology; Hugh Von Andree – Founder, weServed; Rowan Jackson – Co-Founder, Promising Outcomes; Barbara Gottardi – Co-Founder & CEO, Finbridge Global; Andrew Philipson – Founder, JOBBA; Edwin Bartlett – Founder, Kostüme Apparel; Betty Bonnardel-Azzarelli MBE – Founder & CEO, Farmer Charlie; Mark Taylor – Co-Founder, BizNest; Gary Hunter – Founder & CEO, Redu Group; Lyall Cresswell – Founder & CEO, Transport Exchange Group; Lucas Johnston – Founder, Umber; Kuntal Fisher – Founder & CEO, FIECON; Paddy Willis – Co-Founder, Mission Ventures; Edward Bussey – CEO, Oxford Science Enterprises; Andrew Pullman – CEO, People Risk Solutions; David Parker – CEO, Polymath Consulting; Tom O’Hagan – CEO, PXC; Charles Skinner – CEO, Restore; James Mallinson – CEO, Servo Private Wealth; Stuart Green – CEO, SetldPay; Brian Kelly – CEO, Strandcourt; Selina Donald – CEO, The Bulb; Emma Mirrington – CEO, The Talent Labs; Aaron Ross – CEO, Vix Technology; Georgi Rollings – Co-CEO, Starfish Accounting; Saudenh Doctzan – Co-Director, May Sum Restaurant Nottingham; Kerry Burn – Co-Founder & CEO, 848 Group; Ben Putley – Co-Founder & CEO, Alkimi; Dermot O’Grady – Co-Founder & CEO, Ardent Tide; Hannes Verschueren – Co-Founder & CEO, atomic; Ken Hendricks – Co-Founder & CEO, Basepilot; Ulises Chesini – Co-Founder & CEO, BITGENIA; Dominic Ponniah – Co-Founder & CEO, Cleanology; Frederick Mark Tughan – Co-Founder & CEO, Comic Enterprises; Lorna MacLean – Co-Founder & CEO, Demetria; Charles Groome – Co-Founder & CEO, Everna; Mat Westergreen-Thorne – Co-Founder & CEO, Grantify; Meral Griffith – Co-Founder & CEO, Hello Nova; Rupert Patrick – Co-Founder & CEO, James Eadie; Adam Kene – Co-Founder & CEO, Kene Partners; Emily Gill – Co-Founder & CEO, LEVRA; Sam Soares – Co-Founder & CEO, MPWR-365; David Hunter – Co-Founder & CEO, Orbital Cards; Joseph Burns – Co-Founder & CEO, Reformed IT; Natasha Guerra – Co-Founder & CEO, Runway East; Paddy Stobbs – Co-Founder & CEO, Stackfix; Christian Edwards – Co-Founder & CEO, This is Tommy; Adam Thomas Orme – Co-Founder & CEO, Trinity Space Technologies; Ami Daniel – Co-Founder & CEO, Windward; Carlo Keenan Ross – Co-Founder & COO, Bridge; Jake Wells – Co-Founder & COO, Meshed; Tom Love – Co-Founder & Director, Trinity Space Technologies; Marc Swarbrick – Co-Founder, Abstrakt Creative; Alex Street – Co-Founder, Alpha Base; Jill Willis – Co-Founder, Attract & Engage; David Turney – Co-Founder, Avery Law; Tom Griffiths – Co-Founder, BitCompli; Jag Singh – Co-Founder, Bricktrade; Darpan Jain – Co-Founder, CleverSpend; Piers Mummery – Co-Founder, Crunch Technologies International; Robert Craig – Co-Founder, Cube Capital; Clara Latham – Co-Founder, Deeply Foods; Harrison Thomas – Co-Founder, Elephants; Marco Botticelli – Co-Founder, embryōnic studio; Rune Sovndahl – Co-Founder, Fantastic Services; Dec McLaughlin – Co-Founder, Foras; Hetesh Pal – Co-Founder, GiroStor; Sunjit Saroya – Co-Founder, GiroStor; Sophie Eden – Co-Founder, Gordon & Eden; Sam Waterfall – Co-Founder, Greenwood Foods; Carla Petra Ottersen – Co-Founder, Hot Shoe Media; Edward Wijnen – Co-Founder, Intuicon.ai; Paul Billingham – Co-Founder, Knight Corporate Finance; Marcus Love – Co-Founder, Love Ventures; Ash Dey – Co-Founder, Lyfe; Wil Benton – Co-Founder, Metta; Will Taylor – Co-Founder, Old House Labs; Tim Simpson – Co-Founder, Pinchful; Bridie Cunningham – Co-Founder, Portman Scott; Georgijus Kocegarovas – Co-Founder, PSP Lab; Robert Irvin – Co-Founder, RMS Partners; Willem Wellinghoff – Co-Founder, Shieldpay; Ruth Simmonds – Co-Founder, TACaccess; Colin Weston – Co-Founder, TidyChoice; Andrew Dougan – Co-Founder, Viital; Guy Pengelley – Co-Founder, Viresco Group; Dr Nikhit Anilbhai – Co-Founder, Your Cue; Sonakshi Senthil – Co-Founder, Your Cue; Charlotte Pegg – Co-Founder, ZEN8; Hao Chit Fu – Director, Bluetoner; Samuel Davies – Director, Cowgills; Steven Brough – Director, Dramanon; Sarah-Jane Butler – Director, Farringford Legal; Jeffrey Bartlett – Director, Nurture Ventures; Matt Dangell – Director, Rise Group; Daniel Merrington – Director, SubWorx; Rudy Parengal – Founder & CEO, Abjak; James Gozney – Founder & CEO, Aslan; Julian Daniel – Founder & CEO, BSB Construction; Spencer Gallagher – Founder & CEO, Cactus; Alan Smith – Founder & CEO, Capital Asset Management; Becks Armstrong – Founder & CEO, Clarity; Ahana Banerjee – Founder & CEO, Clear; Suzy Ferreira – Founder & CEO, Dinie; Kevin Withane – Founder & CEO, Diversity X; Emma O'Brien – Founder & CEO, Embridge Consulting; Emma Shipley – Founder & CEO, Emma J Shipley; Matt Norbury – Founder & CEO, Epoints Rewards; Gary Mead – Founder & CEO, euroloos; Simon Francis – Founder & CEO, Flock Associates; Grace Castillo – Founder & CEO, Gifftid; Lucy Johnson – Founder & CEO, Green Salon; Carlo Centonze – Founder & CEO, HeiQ; Chris Twigg – Founder & CEO, Inner Circle Consulting; Vijay Muralidharan – Founder & CEO, Insight Delivered; Conlan Ainsworth – Founder & CEO, iReceet; Simon Barry – Founder & CEO, Knowbotics AI; Richard Oastler – Founder & CEO, KPI Tree; Rob Reeve – Founder & CEO, LexTego; Claire Mason – Founder & CEO, Man Bites Dog; Johnny Manning – Founder & CEO, Manning's Tutors; Nimrita Singh – Founder & CEO, Marketing Essentials Lab; Diane Banks – Founder & CEO, Northbank Talent Management; Jon Dobinson – Founder & CEO, other group; Serena Fordham – Founder & CEO, ProspHER; Rosie Hewat – Founder & CEO, Rosie’s People; Flynn Robinson – Founder & CEO, scOS; Sean Ramsden MBE – Founder & CEO, Sean Ramsden International; Dom Hawes – Founder & CEO, Selbey Anderson; Tom Perry – Founder & CEO, Sherpa; Zac Hancox – Founder & CEO, StraightIn; Zoe Robson – Founder & CEO, Strateva Group; Cathy Moseley – Founder & CEO, Supernatural Food; Amanda Coulson – Founder & CEO, SVC Solutions; Alan Wing-King – Founder & CEO, Syntegra Group; Simon Fordham – Founder & CEO, The Institute of Business Support Professionals; Leonard Evans – Founder & CEO, The Profs; Gregory Mccallum – Founder & CEO, ThinkWork; Shain Khoja – Founder & CEO, Thriving Ai; Amy Hopper – Founder & CEO, TOA Group; Angela Fagan – Founder & CEO, Trust My Pet Sitter International; Ollie Scott – Founder & CEO, UNKNOWN; Victoria Johnson – Founder & CEO, VetCT; Amanda Nicholson – Founder & Director, Nicholson Jones Sutton Solicitors; Pippa Watmough – Founder & Director, PE Consulting; Tomasz Letniowski – Founder & Director, Traductio; Lauren Swarbrick – Founder & Managing Director, Abstrakt Creative; Mike Spicer – Founder & Managing Director, PolicyDepartment; Sean Cook – Founder & Managing Director, Urban & Regional; Tom Bohills – Founder & Principal, Founders Law; David Horne – Founder, Add then Multiply; Lucy Walker – Founder, AM Insights; Ben Gwatkin – Founder, Aprez; Kerrie Dorman – Founder, Association of Business Mentors; Robert Hurst – Founder, Bengeho; Dr Jo Carlile – Founder, Carlile Psychology; Dima Kats – Founder, Clear Junction; Jodie Cook – Founder, Coachvox; Dinesh Dhamija – Founder, Copper Beech Group; Harry Cruickshank – Founder, Cruickshank Associates; Michael Blakeley – Founder, Entrepreneurs Collective; Alina Eden Cornea – Founder, eZpZe; Carla Forder – Founder, Fandango Digital; Ed Hill – Founder, Fiddlie Technology; Jenna Dominique – Founder, First Class Comms; Illai Gescheit – Founder, Gescheit & Partners; Simon Bloomfield – Founder, Glenmill Partners; Harriet Green – Founder, HSG Advisory & Basis Capital; Koroush de Werra-Milani – Founder, Ibex Recruitment; Adrian Parsons – Founder, Integrity Software Group; Thomas Borwick – Founder, Kanto Systems; Julian Dowling – Founder, Launch Club Capital; Mark Kingsley-Williams – Founder, LawPanel; Olaf Hofmann – Founder, Maivin Consulting; Peter Cartwright – Founder, Momentum Taxation and Accountancy; Paul Gillings – Founder, Monatrix; Nathalie Oestmann – Founder, Notting Ventures; Sam Tidswell-Norrish – Founder, OPUS; Jessica Wilkinson – Founder, Petal & Co.; Steven Matthew Hyde – Founder, Push Group; Cain Ullah – Founder, Red Badger; Howard Mearsw – Founder, Rise Ventures; Ben Beavers – Founder, SmartyPlants; Hasan Toprakkaya – Founder, Sociality.io; Anton Kooll – Founder, StartUp to ScaleUP Club; Shelley Stuart – Founder, Stuart Consulting; Jonathan Rose – Founder, The Story Club; Chrissie Rucker OBE – Founder, The White Company; Lawrence Pammen – Founder, Third Square; Liza Levy – Founder, Unravel Health; Caroline Marshall – Founder, Upsource Support; Kelly Sinclair – Founder, Vero Tech Sales; Thomas Green – Founder, Verticode; Darren Mercer – Founder, We Clear Junk; Stephen Hoffman – Founding Director, Stephen Hoffman Consulting; Roxane Sanguinetti – Founding Partner, Alma Angels; Alison Jackson – Group Managing Director, Nineteen Group; Mark Hardman – Managing Director, Hardman Associates; Hayden Jones – Managing Director, Merchant Marketing Group; Alex Fink – Partner, Empirical Ventures; Roderick G Banner – CEO, 3LA.com; Rasmus Bech – CEO, Airfinity; Chris Wigley – CEO, Aneira Health; Romanie Thomas – CEO, Chatsie; Daniel Van Binsbergen – CEO, DraftPilot; Alessandro Mele – CEO, EthicalFin; Roberta MacDonald – CEO, Exceptional Alien; Charles Hassall – CEO, Falcon Contract Flooring Sales; Kathy Heath – CEO, Healthy Minds Club; Jason Yeomans – CEO, Iglu Tech Group; Karl Griffin – CEO, JammJar; Jeremy Nicholds – CEO, Judopay; Kizito Muokebe – CEO, Kayndrexsphere Group; John Warringon – CEO, Krafty Entertainment; Simon Rand – CEO, Kuul Tech; Andy Macdonald – CEO, Lisou; Xavier Bellekens – CEO, Lupovis; Edmund May – CEO, Microsec; Stuart Rex – CEO, Omni Money; Camille Rougie – CEO, Plural AI; James O'Sullivan – CEO, Project One Consulting; Sebastien Goldenberg – CEO, QDEX AI; Ross Linnett – CEO, Recite Me; Venetia Archer – CEO, ruuby; Insiya Jafferjee – CEO, Shellworks; Jamie McNaught – CEO, Solidi Crypto Currency Exchange; George Lewin-Smith – CEO, Testudo; Thomas Pascoe-Williams – CEO, The Heracles Project; James Rix – CEO, The On Street Agency; Ieuan Leigh – CEO, Validient; John McLaren-Stewart – CEO, Venture Risks Group; Lesley Williams – CEO, Welsh Innovation Centre for Enterprise (ICE); Sten Saar – CEO, Zego; William Jones – Chairman, Global Village; Andrew Rogoff – Co-CEO, Resource Guru; Emma Lawrence – Co-CEO, Starfish Accounting; Ben Mercer – Co-Founder & CCO, Personify xP; Adam Ward – Co-Founder & CEO, Airtime Rewards; Jeremy Sosabowski – Co-Founder & CEO, AlgoDyamix; Sherden Timmins – Co-Founder & CEO, Camallergy; Paul de Gruchy Gaudin – Co-Founder & CEO, CareRooms; Vanessa Jacobs – Co-Founder & CEO, Circulo Technology; Josh Harris – Co-Founder & CEO, Doc2; Greg Watts – Co-Founder & CEO, Findr; Richard Hollingsworth – Co-Founder & CEO, Fyxer.ai; Dimitri Masin – Co-Founder & CEO, Gradient Labs; Elliot Street – Co-Founder & CEO, Inovus Medical; Karoli Hindriks – Co-Founder & CEO, Jobbatical; Allan Cannon – Co-Founder & CEO, Krucial; Lucas London – Co-Founder & CEO, Lick; Haydn Rees – Co-Founder & CEO, MacDonald and Rees; Tarig Hilal – Co-Founder & CEO, Moja; Alex Gordon-Furse – Co-Founder & CEO, Playmaker; Ben Corrigan – Co-Founder & COO, London Reporting House; Enrique Munoz de Cote – Co-Founder & CTO, Mutable Tactics; Vytautas Savickas – Co-Founder & CTO, Science Card; Neil Harvie – Co-Founder & Director, Sempre analytics; Mubasher Ahmed – Co-Founder, Hi.ERD; Michael Tinmouth – Co-Founder, ACUA Ocean; Shubh Malde – Co-Founder, Arda; Elliot Metcalfe-Smith – Co-Founder, Caruso Languages; Richard Bell – Co-Founder, Chapter 4; Leonel Richard – Co-Founder, Coszus; Sarah Quist – Co-Founder, Creative Awakenings; Derek Bishop – Co-Founder, Culture Consultancy; Joseph Jones – Co-Founder, CurveBlock; James Burch – Co-Founder, Decently; James Chapman – Co-Founder, Decently; Jeannie Arthur – Co-Founder, Destiny Automate; Dean Hills – Co-Founder, EDR Technology; Dominic Day – Co-Founder, fourfive; Derek Baker – Co-Founder, Fynlo AI; Sam Gordon – Co-Founder, Gordon & Eden; Jen Bayford – Co-Founder, Growth Animals; Aidan Bocci – Co-Founder, Growzz; Nigel Walker – Co-Founder, HeadData; Omer Ozener – Co-Founder, Hello Klean; Edward Poland – Co-Founder, Hire Space; Amy Moring – Co-Founder, Hunter & Gather; Hannah Feldman – Co-Founder, Kidadl; Ian Walker – Co-Founder, LaundryRepublic; Gus Bartholomew – Co-Founder, Leafr; Jojo Regan – Co-Founder, MANORS Golf; Gemma Young – Co-Founder, Moverly; Steve Johnson – Co-Founder, My Secret Stylist; Michael Greenhough – Co-Founder, MyCarbon; James Grant – Co-Founder, MyTutor; Nikki Guest – Co-Founder, NGC Networks Group; Greg Lawton – Co-Founder, Nodes & Links; Edward Page – Co-Founder, Paace; Adam Lewis – Co-Founder, Pillar; Elliot Godfrey – Co-Founder, Pitch London; Bogdan Oprea – Co-Founder, Progressio.ai; Rohan Radhakrishnan – Co-Founder, Quarter Proof; Olivia Grant – Co-Founder, Renue; Percy Stilwell – Co-Founder, Resource Guru; Rebecca Denyer – Co-Founder, Sebring Works; Blair Spowart – Co-Founder, Seedling; Helen Bankole – Co-Founder, Smartshifts; Oliver Fisher – Co-Founder, Springpod; Adelle Martin – Co-Founder, Stronger Together Through Cancer CIC; Dmitry Kazhdan – Co-Founder, Tenyks; Daniel Dyulgerski – Co-Founder, Terrapin; Justin Smith – Co-Founder, The Educational App Store; Richard Mackie – Co-Founder, The Knowledge Room; Lee O’Sullivan – Co-Founder, Think FM solutions; Nick Telson-Sillett – Co-Founder, trumpet; James Pope – Co-Founder, Turner Pope investments; Graeme Everitt – Co-Founder, TVI; Kimeshan Naidoo – Co-Founder, Unibuddy; Lara Mead – Co-Founder, Varley; Joshua Moreton – Co-Founder, Walk Through Walls; Visar Statovci – Co-Founder, Waste Creative; Jonny Plein – Co-Founder, YASO; Andrew Foyle – Co-Founder, Zixty; Andrew Campling – Director, 419 Consulting; Nicola Wilkes – Director, A Noble Gift; Nikki Taylor – Director, Abstrakt Creative; Michael Borrelli – Director, AI & Partners; Ryan Timoney – Director, Ascendeo; John Barber – Director, Barber Consulting; Bradley Rogers – Director, Brad Rogers Group; Robert Bridgman – Director, Bridgman; Carolyn Barraclough – Director, C&C Search; Neil Baldock – Director, Charles David Casson; Christopher Morgan – Director, Club Sport NI; Matt Coates – Director, Coates Electronics; Julie Watling – Director, Communications Solutions UK; Katharine Hayman – Director, Conscious Living Coaches; William O'Brien – Director, Corporate Development; Andrew Charles Ford – Director, CustomerGig; Umran Khan – Director, CVC Components; Pamina Bou – Director, Dream Reality Interactive; Matthew Rogers-Draycott – Director, EEUK; Russell Worricker – Director, Elements Outdoor Living; Jack Pearson – Director, Eltham Court; Rachel Emmett – Director, Emmett PR & Communications; Mark Jones – Director, Ennew Jones; Stamati Lagoudis – Director, Euler Functions; Rufus Salter – Director, Firma Energy; Alex Rosengren – Director, Fortice; Alan Smith – Director, Forward Together; Henry Harvey – Director, Garage Style; Nick Roach – Director, Geminus Innovation; Sofia Docwra – Director, Gloss Enterprises Kent; Wayne Whitford – Director, High Court Writ Recovery; Nash Kumar Sareen – Director, Higher Elevation; Jamie Revell – Director, JR Revell; Scott Jay – Director, Keystones Property; Vikki Lindop – Director, Lindop Developments; Christina Kebbell – Director, LINK Smoke Control; Ollie Hart – Director, Peak Health Coaching; David Reed – Director, Pecs; James Bridge – Director, Poolman Leisure Group; Joe Buckman – Director, Psych Health; Ben Barnaby – Director, Psych Health; Maria Inmaculada Martinez-Rubio – Director, Right Brain Future; Eddie Edmonstone – Director, Rose Project Management; Andrew Stephen Brode – Director, RWS Holdings; Lucy Regan – Director, Sew Essential; Carl Davies – Director, Shuffles Events; Steve Chambers – Director, SJULTRA UK; Lorraine Bridden – Director, South Devon Roasters; Jonathan Barns – Director, Sprint Integration; Peter Stirling – Director, STL Tech; Dhruv Krishnaraj – Director, Student Circus; Mark McCormack – Director, Talking Tables; Craig Hubert – Director, The Hair and Beauty Supermarket; Chris Simmance – Director, The OMG Center; Coralie Watson – Director, Theme Creative; Ian Thomson – Director, Thomson & Scott; Tom O'Brien FRSA – Director, Tom Wrote It; Frankie Clark – Director, Total Line Marking; Andy Coyle – Director, West Peak; Darren Cairns – Director, Your CMO; Malcolm Little – Executive Chairman, Advanced Dynamics; Nick Johnson – Founder & CEO, AppsAnywhere; Melinda Nicci – Founder & CEO, Baby2Body; Adrian Faure – Founder & CEO, BCA; Nick Taylor – Founder & CEO, Building Atlas; Sai Lakshmi – Founder & CEO, Caura; Barney Hussey-Yeo – Founder & CEO, Cleo AI; Ankur Mehta – Founder & CEO, ComplyLens; Tom Thirlwall – Founder & CEO, COPA90; Darren Fell – Founder & CEO, Crunch.co.uk; Moises Barbera Ramos – Founder & CEO, Drill Surgeries; Shalini Khemka CBE – Founder & CEO, E2Exchange; Phil Warren – Founder & CEO, Energy & Technical Services; Jacyn Heavens – Founder & CEO, Epos Now; Joe Lewin – Founder & CEO, Foundy.com; Sam Green – Founder & CEO, Foxe and Fable; Jonny Matthews – Founder & CEO, gocertify; Mirjana Prokic – Founder & CEO, hangAIR Global; Toby Harper – Founder & CEO, Harper James Solicitors; Firaas Rashid – Founder & CEO, Hook Technology; John Ward – Founder & CEO, Hussle; Laura Stembridge – Founder & CEO, InsideOut; Rajeeb Dey MBE – Founder & CEO, Learnerbly; Tobias Crosbie – Founder & CEO, Making Moves London; Karen Sharpe – Founder & CEO, Mergent Technologies; Matthew Mawdwsley – Founder & CEO, Morpheus Lending; Charlie Stein-Cohen – Founder & CEO, Net2work; Will Pearce – Founder & CEO, Orbital Witness; Liz Ashall-Payne – Founder & CEO, ORCHA; Sonia Ponzo – Founder & CEO, Outset Wellness; Hannah Sore – Founder & CEO, PharmEnable Therapeutics; Dave Hindle – Founder & CEO, Propensio Finance; Matt Escott – Founder & CEO, Protolaunch; Amin Hamzianpour – Founder & CEO, Qube; Baris Ozaydinli – Founder & CEO, Scooch; Pascal de Mul – Founder & CEO, Setmixer; Chris Parsonson – Founder & CEO, Solve Intelligence; Darren Scott-Healey – Founder & CEO, Tailor Made Technologies; Emmanuel Cohen – Founder & CEO, The Armadillo Group; Kate Bright – Founder & CEO, UMBRA International Group; Francis Toye – Founder & CEO, Unilink Software; Damian McLaughlin – Founder & CEO, Urban Phoenix; Warren Davies – Founder & CEO, Utilize; Phillip Carter – Founder & CEO, Xpert360; Joe Seddon – Founder & CEO, Zero Gravity; Xavier De Pauw – Founder & CFO, Kennek; Bev Shah – Founder & Co-CEO, City Hive; Dave Tucker – Founder & Co-CEO, Glean; Felix Mitchell – Founder & Co-CEO, Instant Impact; Rene Moshi Macdonald – Founder & Creative Director, Lisou; Jonathan Falkingham MBE – Founder & Creative Director, Urban Splash; Adam Fudakowski – Founder & Director, Switchee; Thomas Schilling – Founder & Director, Tugela People; Nicholas R. Morgan – Founder & Group CEO, We Group; Stephen Britt – Founder & Managing Director, Anchor Storage; Paul Theile – Founder & Managing Director, MEL (Holdings); Patricia Ypma – Founder & Managing Director, Spark Legal and Policy Consulting; Will Linay – Founder & Managing Director, Stratstone Developments; Jarmila Halovsky-Yu – Founder & Managing Director, YUnique Marketing; Daniel Philip Astaire – Founder & Managing Partner, Grosvenor Law; Alison Mcmurtrie – Founder & Principle, Idunn Consulting; Ian Merricks – Founder & Proposition Lead, VenturePath; Karli Büchling – Founder, Yoni Health; Kevin Coles – Founder, A&N Consultancy; Darcy Laceby – Founder, absolute collagen; Nadine Campbell – Founder, ACE Entrepreneurs; Will Mitting – Founder, Acuiti Management Intelligence; Alison Shadrack – Founder, Adia PR; George Buckley – Founder, AIIR; Jenny Bowden – Founder, Aivilo; Edward Keeling – Founder, Albion Airspace; Alfie Whattam – Founder, Alfa AI; Alison Cork – Founder, Alison at Home; Linda Hayes De Garcia – Founder, Alluxi Consulting; Christopher Robinson – Founder, Ampsahead; Sarah Turner – Founder, Angel Academe; Sarah J. Wadham – Founder, Aphrodite Angels; Lydia Carrick – Founder, Apputee; Denis Kaminskiy – Founder, Arcus Global; Jason Living – Founder, Argyle Square Property Group; Joanne Charlick – Founder, Aroona Consulting; Rachel Hayward – Founder, Ask the Chameleon; Connie Nam – Founder, Astrid & Miyu; Peadar Coyle – Founder, AudioStack; Nayan Kalnad – Founder, Avegen Health; Joe Andrews – Founder, Aztec Network; Lilijan Sulejmanovic – Founder, Bardo Ventures; Peter Lovering – Founder, Beemcar Transport for All; Thomas Power – Founder, BIP100 Club; Leke Sholuade – Founder, Black Valley; Vanita Parti – Founder, Blink Brow Bar; Ed Stanbury – Founder, BLOK London; Stefano Di Gregorio – Founder, Boogi; Jess Jeetley MBE – Founder, Bot-Theory; Rachel Roots – Founder, Brains for Hire; Sahar Hashemi OBE – Founder, Buy Women Built; Dominika Minarovic – Founder, BYBI Beauty; Lucy Chamberlain – Founder, C&C Search; David Luck – Founder, Capital on Tap; Nadia Crandall – Founder, Capshore Partners; Carmel Saulbrey – Founder, Carmel Jane Photography; Shernaz Engineer – Founder, Cerity Appointments; Lana Tahirly Abdullayeva – Founder, Chez FinTech; Hannah mccollum – Founder, ChicP; Camilla Collins – Founder, CJC Hair & Makeup; Bear Ashton Johnson – Founder, Clic; Niklas Friedberg – Founder, Clustermarket; Stephen Wheatley – Founder, Company of Entrepreneurs; Ian Jarvis – Founder, Composability; Sid Pourfalah – Founder, Concrete4Change; Nick Smith – Founder, Cordel; Daniel Szor – Founder, Cotswolds Distillery; Louisa Jackson – Founder, Craic; Martine Abboud – Founder, Creo Incubator; Kirsty Wilson – Founder, Cross Section Equestrian; Douglas Emslie – Founder, Cuil Bay Capital; Akansha Pandey – Founder, Cureline Pvt; Dan Martin – Founder, Dan Martin Content & Events; Catherine Bedford – Founder, Dashel; Hani Armstrong – Founder, Dengi Media; Joshua Hunt – Founder, Digital Media Partner; Paul Angeli – Founder, digitalPACT; Vivek Awasthi – Founder, Director in various startups; Emma Downer – Founder, DIY With Emma; David Forsyth – Founder, Document Data Group; Toinette Vicars – Founder, Dot-Connectors; Kathryn Bricken – Founder, Doughlicious; James Stirrat – Founder, Dougie AI; Louis Collin – Founder, Drink Local; Christian Nentwich – Founder, Duco; Alasdair Pettigrew – Founder, Eddyline Ventures; Oli Cook – Founder, Ekko; Simon Toller – Founder, Ekko; Maria Ward – Founder, Elegance Lashes; Laura Sofie – Founder, Elevate Personal Finance; Keith Ellis – Founder, Ellis International Associates; Marcus Williamson – Founder, Empower Aid Technologies; Emma Jones CBE – Founder, Enterprise Nation; Hephzi Pemberton – Founder, Equality Group; Emily Westwood – Founder, EVE; Umberto Grand – Founder, GRAYE; Sean Kiernan – Founder, Greengage; Joe Devereux-Kelly – Founder, GrowGrows; Kajal Sanghrajka – Founder, Growth Hub Global; Martin Leuw – Founder, Growth4Good; Dan Robinson – Founder, Hackford Data; Daniel Murray – Founder, Heights; Jemel Richards – Founder, HERO FILMS; Deirdre O'Neill – Founder, Hertility Health; Stuart Barr – Founder, Hey Maestro; Thomas Wilson – Founder, Home Appliance Guard; Tim Keaveney – Founder, Homethings; Mark Huxley – Founder, Huxley Advisory; Adam Amos – Founder, Iceberg Ventures; Natalie Montagnani – Founder, IGNITE Women in Business; Sarah Natasha Mortimer – Founder, Imagineerium; Matt Mawdesley – Founder, Incipient Consultancy; Simon Thethi – Founder, Indicium Ventures; Tony Matharu – Founder, Integrity International Group; Peter Nixey – Founder, Intentional.io; Caitlin Rozario – Founder, interlude; Roxana Nasoi – Founder, IP3 Studio; Royden Greaves – Founder, Jarvis Pension; David Tucker – Founder, Jasper Equity; Jamie Darkin – Founder, JD Enterprises; Kevin Bath – Founder, JimJams Spreads; Kate Macdonald – Founder, Kadence Consultancy; Kieran Fisher – Founder, KBF Enterprises; Benoit Machefer – Founder, Keel; Matt Williams – Founder, Keep Communications; Z. Ali Shah – Founder, Kew Data Consultants; Klara Goldy – Founder, KGI Design Studio; Ailsa Kiely – Founder, Kiely Transformative Growth; Mark O’Neil – Founder, Kinetic Business Advice; Shaun Traynor – Founder, Kip; Lucy Minton – Founder, Kitt Offices; Stephen Lynch – Founder, KPL Knowledge Solutions; Fraser Ferguson – Founder, Kubenet; Matthew Jack – Founder, Kythera AI; Abigail Langridge – Founder, Langridge Consulting; Jude Jennison – Founder, Leaders by Nature; Ashish K. Gupta – Founder, Leap@Forward; Richard Carter – Founder, Lopay; Gail Laser – Founder, Love Barnet; Lucas Jones – Founder, Lowicks; Ryan Eric Gralia – Founder, Lucius; Gary Stewart – Founder, Lyfeguard; Sara Carty – Founder, Marketbound; Philip Bacon – Founder, Marketing Managed; Charlie Bradshaw – Founder, Matrix APA (UK); Max Beech – Founder, Maxed Labs; Mairi Bannon – Founder, MBB Consulting; Miriam Dervan – Founder, MDE Services; Douglas Orr – Founder, Message Matrix; Clare Shaw – Founder, Mini Mozart; Jenny Garbis – Founder, Mission Good; Freddie Elborne – Founder, MONC; Stuart Macgregor – Founder, Motion Dynamics; Ana Gomes – Founder, mPixl Technologies; Jacob Beckett – Founder, Multivitamin Studio; Cristina Holm – Founder, My Secret Stylist; Shane Mullis – Founder, MyProskill.Expert; Georgina Bowman – Founder, MYSHOOTS®️; Navin Jaitly – Founder, Navin Jaitly Coaching; Eren Kocyigit – Founder, NBT; Nick Dinsdale – Founder, NCD Equipment; Linda Jiang – Founder, Neurowave; Pragati Kumar Dhingra – Founder, NI Bricks; Karen Houghton – Founder, Nimbus Legal; Kieran South – Founder, North Star; Tom Lymn – Founder, Northern Shoal consulting; Keir Carnie – Founder, Nuud; Dhruvin Patel – Founder, Ocushield; Edwin Simonds – Founder, Offload; Samir Patel – Founder, Omnia Housing; Natasha Zone – Founder, onezone; Kerry Morgan – Founder, Outsource Financial Solutions; Ben Armstrong – Founder, Pall Mall Investments International; Toby Willcocks – Founder, Pallery; Catrin MacDonnell – Founder, Papadeli Foods; Emma Walford – Founder, Perigon Partners; George Phillips – Founder, Phillips Hobbies; Timothy Chater – Founder, Phoenix Ventures; Sathya Smith – Founder, Piper Technology; Stefan Husanu – Founder, Pith & Stem; Julie Wong – Founder, PJL; Mark Hawes – Founder, Potential HR; Nazanin Nankali – Founder, Powertutors; Rachael Twumasi-Corson – Founder, PPTCS; Ian Stephens – Founder, Principia Brand Consultants; Tony Harrison – Founder, Printercare; Amrit Lotay – Founder, Product Sphere; Anthony Gale – Founder, PromoLens; Edmond Ibrahimi – Founder, Propertalis; James Hadley – Founder, Property from Pensions; Matthew Pearce – Founder, PuriFire Labs; Rachel Vosper – Founder, Rachel Vosper; Nigel Verdon – Founder, Railsr; Raishma Islam – Founder, Raishma Ready to Wear; Rebecca Wray – Founder, Rebecca Wray Coaching Consultancy; Simon Newell – Founder, Renewell Water UK; Deborah Harris – Founder, Restoring Health; Cameron Johnson – Founder, Revenue Consultancy and Econx; Ed Lewis-Pratt – Founder, Roarsome; Kevin Brittain – Founder, Runpreneur; Catherine K. Jolly – Founder, Rutherford Glen Global; Ben Martin – Founder, Safe4 Information Management; Jack McMahon – Founder, Saint Group; Paul Rider – Founder, SALT; Charlie Kenny – Founder, Salve; Sam Ward – Founder, Sam Ward Creative; James Digva – Founder, Sauce Shop; Lara Morgan – Founder, Scentered; Taha Dar – Founder, SearchSmartly; Laura Harnett – Founder, Seep; Cecile Reinaud – Founder, Seraphine Maternity; James Farnfield – Founder, Shake Content; Oliver Ashness – Founder, SimplyCook; Paul Naha-Biswas – Founder, Sixley; Sarah Graham – Founder, Skills4Stem Group; James Mishreki – Founder, Skin + Me; Greg Gormley – Founder, SkootEco Group; Hussain Hilli – Founder, Skrap; Natasha Grossman – Founder, Slip Technology; Damien Gray – Founder, SOAK’d OATS; Nazia Anwar – Founder, Social Blox; Gareth Deakin – Founder, Sonorous Consulting; David Herbada – Founder, Spectroma; Neal Gandhi – Founder, Spin Energy; Jo Saxby – Founder, Spruce; Laura Oliphant – Founder, Stand; Mauricio Banados-Cornejo – Founder, stash-up; Melwin Mehta – Founder, Sterling Investments; Tom Greenwood – Founder, Strategic Launch; Craig Jamieson – Founder, Straw Innovations; Joanne Bekis – Founder, Summit Consultancy; Ben Lakey – Founder, Syndi Health; Rayan Bannai – Founder, Table for Ten; Bevan Thomas – Founder, Tahu Capital; Gabrielle Mendes Salisbury – Founder, Talk Twenties; Sophie Taylor – Founder, Taylor Made Media TV; Stephanie Henson – Founder, techtimeout; Rakhitha Lakshman Dias – Founder, Terias Consulting; Georgina Cotton – Founder, The Accounts Shop; Jordan Walker – Founder, The Bitcoin Collective; Manya Klempner – Founder, The Boxing House; Barnaby Wynter – Founder, The Brand Bucket Company; Diane Young – Founder, The Drum; Suzie Campbell – Founder, The Friendly CFO; Alana Macfarlane Kempner – Founder, The Gut Stuff; Shona Motherwell – Founder, The Independent Buying Group; Shreneve Singh – Founder, The Live Now App; Jane Middleton – Founder, The Middleton Partnership; Marie-Louise Annan – Founder, The Mishkan Group; Matthew Freeman – Founder, The Numbers Studio; Torie Blythe-Richards – Founder, The Partnership Collection; Tony Craddock – Founder, The Payments Association; Teresa Dupay – Founder, The Pebble Rebels; Harry Turpin – Founder, The Savourists; Leah Brown – Founder, The WayFinders Group; Michelle de Klerk – Founder, The Women's Chapter; Alexander Cavadias – Founder, TheCart; Boris Boychev – Founder, TheWatergateGroups; Amelia Rope – Founder, Third Time Lucky; Terry Walby – Founder, Thoughtonomy; Kieran O'Neill – Founder, Thread; Dan Amos – Founder, Tools for Schools; Claire Trachet – Founder, Trachet Advisory; Christopher Tucker – Founder, Tucker & Partners; Harry Bremner – Founder, Tuggs; Gabriel Isserlis – Founder, Tutti & SuperScout; Dr David Webster – Founder, r10ventures; Adrian Wong – Founder, Ultraviolet Venture Community; Sarah Orecchia – Founder, Unbeelievable health; Rachael Richards – Founder, Uniform7; William Saville – Founder, Unily; Bev Fawdington – Founder, Uvamed; TJ Lee – Founder, Vagabond Digital; George Oliver Wilson – Founder, Veritas Loyalty Consulting; Jake Wilmot-Sitwell – Founder, VR Entertainment; Alex Davies – Founder, Wealth Club; Simon Hague – Founder, Wheresmylunch; Charles Instone – Founder, Wild Dose; Will Polston – Founder, Will Polston Coaching and Training; Paul Field – Founder, Wire Free Protection; Jonathan Quin – Founder, World First; Sricharan Sanakkayala – Founder, Wrapped Carbon Initiative; Phillip Watts – Founder, Xelix; Octavia Hamilton – Founder, XENA; Simon Woodroffe OBE – Founder, YO! Sushi and YOTEL; Victor Jarland – Founder, ZEN8 Sports; Edward Goodchild – Founder, Zendht; Richard Jordan – Founder, Zenion; James Basden – Founder, Zenobe; Giles Tollworthy – Founding Director, FW2; Adam Spence – Founding Partner, Edition Capital; Eric Liaw – General Partner, IVP; Julian Rowe – General Partner, Latitude; Valentin Menedetter – General Partner, Vektor Partners; Logan Naidu – Group CEO, Kernel Global; Mark Fraser – Managing Director, Aero Astro Arts; Joseph Dilsaver – Managing Director, Aztex Solutions; Rita Sharma – Managing Director, BestAtTravel.co.uk; Nicolas Marquez Arnedo – Managing Director, Bocking Homes; Nicola Barden – Managing Director, BSF Solid Surfaces; Daniel Holloway – Managing Director, Budget Waste Management; Thomas Adrian Burkill – Managing Director, Chemanglia; Alexander Low – Managing Director, DCM insights; Stuart Wade – Managing Director, Empire Manufacturing; Steve Mummery – Managing Director, Fruition Systems; Catherine Barratt – Managing Director, Furnitubes; Jamie Willsdon – Managing Director, Future Group; Amy Mooney – Managing Director, Gas Angel; Alina Cooper – Managing Director, GetSetGo; Carlton Brailey – Managing Director, Granite Consulting; Jeff Barnett – Managing Director, Industrial Door Systems; Mark Brackley – Managing Director, InfiniSki; Kalpa Shah – Managing Director, Jane Lewis Fashion; Stephen Burke – Managing Director, John Burke Associates; Steve Burges – Managing Director, Kerv; Mark Worsfold – Managing Director, MWM Consultancy; Scot William Gardiner – Managing Director, New Waverley Partners; Dan Mitchell – Managing Director, Oakheart Property; Ian Banks – Managing Director, One to One Personnel; Samuel Bowen – Managing Director, Opal Black Insurance Services; Peter Bowles – Managing Director, Original BTC; Ian Davis – Managing Director, Packaged Pumps Systems; Kieron Garlic – Managing Director, Present Communications; Edward Freeman – Managing Director, Rare Origins; Ces Terranova – Managing Director, Red Earth Studio; Jamie Vaughan – Managing Director, Signifly; Chris Duckworth – Managing Director, SIP Build UK; Clive Bonny – Managing Director, Strategic Management Partners; Matthew Shanahan – Managing Director, Stream Networks; James Hook – Managing Director, SubVision Surveys & SkyVision Surveys; Terry Upham – Managing Director, Tau Advisory; Angela Prentner-Smith – Managing Director, This is Milk; Jaysri Thangam Ananthapadmanabhan – Managing Director, TrillionDollars; Richard Pemberton – Managing Director, Trumpington Farm Company; Nicola C. Wise – Managing Director, Wise Training & Development; Mike Turns – Managing Partner, 4CAST Investment Group; Charles Cameron – Managing Partner, Cameron Barney Herbst Hilgenfeldt; Kevin Tan – Managing Partner, Upsilon Family; Irina Pafomova – Managing Partner, Zestic AI; James Killigrew – Owner, Associated Glass; James Martin – Owner, Baddow Park House; Sue Hainsby – Owner, Carlean Property Management; Lance Forman – Owner, H. Forman & Son; Anthony Murphy – Owner, Making Moves London; Scott Kemp – Owner, Web Farm Media; Edward Boddington – Partner, BCA; David Gilgur – Partner, Blue Lake Solution; Edward Higgin – Partner, Harrington Cooper; Philip Hare – Partner, Philip Hare & Associates; Jeremie Danicourt – Partner, Planet First; Toby Orr – Partner, Shearwater Global; David Dumeresque – Partner, Tyzack Partners; Sian Conway-Wood – Senior Managing Partner, 181st Street Communications; Mark Sweeny – Founder & CEO, de Novo Solutions; Anthony Guy Hillier – Founder, Opagio; Judy Leung – Founder, Sweqlink; Richard Heggie – Co-Founder, Enginuity; Oli Bates – Founder & CEO, 4WALLS; Martin Banbury – Founder, Streetify.com; Felicia Meyerowitz Singh – Co-Founder, Engage Smarter AI; Robert Sims – CEO, Sum Vivas; Adam Green – Co-Founder, Happiest; Steven South – Founder & CEO, Hydra EVC; Justine Roberts – Founder & CEO, Mumsnet; Lily Elsner – Co-Founder & CEO, Jack Fertility; Mercurius Saad – Co-Founder & CEO, Tutorbloc; Adam Allen-Rogers – Co-Founder, AI Fit; Saideep Gogineni – Founder & CEO, Novocuris; Dr Ben Miles – Founder & CEO, Spin Up Science; Julia Kemp – Founder, Pawpass; Barbara Spurrier – Founder, CFPro; Jaikiran Keerthi – Founder, Voxmind; Michael Venner – CEO, Auva Certification; Bridget Skelton – CEO, Bridget Skelton; Christian Coetzee – CEO, Crunch Technologies International; Stephen Findlay – CEO, Growth CFO; Neil Davidson – CEO, HeyHuman; Dominic Wheatley – CEO, Interactive Partners; Dr Frazer Thompson – CEO, Invicta Tweed; David Whittaker – CEO, Keystone Property Finance; Dips Patel – CEO, KitKing; Matt McDonnell – CEO, Medicare EMS Group UK; Jason Pearson – CEO, On Chain International; Rushab Shah – CEO, OneHive; Amanda Cook – Founder, Excellent Gourmet Trading; Emma Little – Founder, ExecSpace; Jo Haigh – Founder, fds; James Van Den Heule – Founder, Fenton Whelan; Cordelia Meacher – Founder, FieldHouse Associates; Shaun Ng – Founder, Fifth Row Technologies; Sam Smith – Founder, finnCap; Guy Tolhurst – Founder, Fintel; Russell Stinson – Founder, Fireheart Coffee; Adam Clark – Founder, First Light Leads; Robert Van Den Bergh – Founder, Fluent; Matteo Dessi – Founder, FN1X; Valeria Vahorovska – Founder, Fondy; Hamish Gill – Founder, Fore!; Phil Blows – Founder, Forge Software Services; Dr. Jason Zheng Jiang – Founder, FOSTER Technology; Stacey Foster – Founder, Fosters Accountants and Consultants; Daniel Christey – Founder, Founder + Lightning; Pawel Kaminski – Founder, Founder + Lightning; Daniel Wardle – Founder, Founder Sales Club; Christina Richardson – Founder, Foundology; Nicky Westbrook – Founder, Fresh Communication; Ashley Read – Founder, Frontcourt Studio; Danny Hall – Founder, FSE Online; Nigel Farren – Founder, Fundability; Ingrid Murray – Founder, Fundfast; Sebastiaan Debrouwere – Founder, Genie.io; Steve Marsh – Founder, GeoSpock; Sarah Lloyd-Hughes – Founder, Ginger Training & Coaching; Maggie Chen – Founder, Girls in Charge Initiative; Russ Shaw CBE – Founder, Global Tech Advocates.
Three Big Ideas is our weekly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.
In this week, a guest entry from Shivani H Menon suggests how to make VAT less damaging to growth, Eamonn Ives shoots down a proposal to tax frequent flyers, and Anastasia Bektrimirova discusses what role the United Kingdom can play in taking progress studies from rhetoric to reality.
🧮 Shivani H Menon, Deputy Head of Research, Onward
In Onward’s latest report, The British Entrepreneur, we found that high costs were clobbering two groups of business owners in particular – those contemplating growth, and those currently growing. One cost they are especially worried about is the abrupt hike in their tax bills from VAT when they start turning over £90,000 and above.
Tax exemptions for small businesses are normally welcome. But the VAT threshold is disincentivising growth for businesses whose turnover is approaching the threshold. Nearly 26,000 businesses are hiring fewer employees or refusing additional work to avoid paying a higher VAT rate.
There is a natural tendency among politicians to deal with this problem by simply increasing the threshold further. Earlier this year the threshold was raised from £85,000 to £90,000. Reform UK in their election manifesto even pledged to increase it to £150,000.
But there are two major issues with this approach. Britain already has the highest VAT threshold in the world, and any further increase will cost the Treasury nearly £50 million for every £1,000 increase in the threshold. Second, increasing the threshold would not do away with the cliff-edge, it would only shift the point at which SMEs begin artificially limiting their growth.
Counterintuitively, the only approach to reform VAT in a way that eliminates the cliff-edge is to lower the threshold dramatically and introduce a tapered rate that sees businesses with the lowest turnover pay the least VAT. The threshold could be reduced to £30,000 at a 1% VAT rate, increasing gradually until it reaches a rate of 20% for businesses turning over £140,000 or more.
Tapered VAT isn’t a perfect alternative, nor is it without its own administrative burdens. But coupled with the digital VAT filing system and provisions for more frequent filing for those businesses that see their turnover change frequently, it is the only way to encourage long-term growth among businesses currently choked by the threshold.
🛫 Eamonn Ives, Research Director
Above, Shivani outlined a proposal to make part of our tax system smarter. In my Three Big Ideas this week, I want to look at one that would do the opposite. Specifically, the suggestion from a group called the Stay Grounded Network and the left-wing think tank the New Economics Foundation to introduce a ‘frequent flyer levy’. As the name of the tax implies, they think extra charges should be slapped on passengers who fly multiple times a year. They argue this is necessary to curb aviation’s contribution to climate change, because higher prices would mean fewer flights being taken and less fuel being burnt.
I’ll park my concerns about the ability to roll this out in practice for now (anyone who has used British Airways’ website lately will know further complexity to booking tickets is the last thing we need), as well as the equity issues (what about immigrants who may need to fly back and forth to see family?), and the impact on business productivity, and so forth. What I want to focus on here is the necessity of this ‘solution’ in the first place.
Already, the aviation industry is covered by the UK Emissions Trading System, which is a cap and trade scheme that puts a price on each tonne of carbon produced by a company subject to it. Ultimately, if we want to tax airline emissions – as indeed I believe we should! – this is the way to do it. Not only does it more accurately price the pollution generated by individual carriers, it also creates an incentive for them to reduce the carbon they emit in the first place. If they invest in cleaner engines or lighter planes or use less polluting fuels, they can reduce their tax liability. A frequent flyer levy does not have that same pressure to decarbonise factored into every single ticket purchase, because the tax incidence is borne by the consumer alone.
As the world heats up, it’s understandable to want to reach for every tool we have to tackle pollution at its source. Thankfully, we already have a perfectly sound one in place for aviation emissions – and it means a frequent flyer levy is an idea best left behind on the tarmac.
🚀 Anastasia Bektimirova, Researcher
In your social media feeds over the weekend, you might have spotted some British policy folks cruising in self-driving cars. No, Wayve didn’t roll out its car fleet on the streets of London overnight. Excited posts were coming from the Bay Area, as some of the finest minds from the “progress studies” community, and their supporters, descended on Berkeley for The Roots of Progress Institute’s inaugural conference.
The term “progress studies” was coined by Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collison in their 2019 Atlantic essay. In addition to its core discussion on the need to study and understand the causes of material and civilisational progress, it made an important point: the goal should be to direct action towards progress, not merely to understand its drivers. This is what makes progress studies less of a new academic field and more of a movement. And indeed, most of the content emerging from the progress studies group has a problem-solution angle to it, and proposes to shake things up with more boldness than a regular policy think tank.
But as some from the progress studies community begin to realise, while enthusiasm is something to celebrate, innovative ideas are destined to face the harsh realities of implementation, tied with political will and fiscal constraints of the government departments. Just as not all of the fruits of science will make it from the lab into the real world, some policy ideas are destined to never make it onto the statute book.
One doesn’t need the Californian sun to brainstorm the future from sofas. The UK is no stranger to hosting summits and conferences around science, technology and innovation, more pro-progress groups are beginning to form, and I regularly come across some hackathon taking place. We need to realise what our unique strengths are, double down on them, and not shy away from being loud. Our proximity to Europe, while also having the biggest concentration of top universities and talent of anywhere on the continent, is one such strength to leverage. And we should do so in more publicly open and innovative ways, similar to what, for example, my colleague Anton Howes proposed as a New Great Exhibition. If someone is keen to take an eleven-hour flight for a two-day conference stateside, they're probably just as happy to take a short trip across the English Channel too.
Last week we called on entrepreneurs to sign our letter on reported changes to Capital Gains Tax (CGT) which are expected in the fast-approaching Budget. More than 1,000 signatories later, plus coverage in Sifted, CapX, City A.M. and Yahoo Finance, this is – without a shadow of doubt – the issue that’s got Britain’s entrepreneurs riled up more than any other in recent years. For many, it’s even bigger than Brexit.
Our letter has been signed by founders who have collectively raised close to £7 billion (thanks to Beauhurst’s Henry Whorwood for crunching the numbers). We have 150 founders eager to speak with any journalist who wants to know what the big deal is.
We’re not the only ones working on it. Fintech Founders – a network of the UK’s leading fintech founders – has written its own letter to the Chancellor. Meanwhile, other groups are working behind the scenes and mobilising. As I wrote last week: the more, the mightier.
There are credible reports that Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR) will be scrapped. This would be doubly brutal for entrepreneurs. Not just for them personally, but for the devastating impact on their employees who are incentivised under the scheme through stock options or shares. This is what makes people gamble on a plucky British startup rather than work for a US tech titan. Instead of scrapping BADR, the Chancellor should target it solely at entrepreneurs and their teams building companies, while increasing the limits from its diminished £1 million.
It’s important to note that this isn’t just a problem for the tech industry. Also signing the letter are Whitney Hawkings, the visionary behind FLOWERBX which brings blooms to your door; Pip Murray, whose flavour-packed nut butters have spread across the nation; Matthew McNeill Love, the brains behind Thursday, shaking up the dating game; and Alla Ouvarova of Two Chicks, which has revolutionised the way we enjoy eggs (and, for me, cocktails). I could go on, and on, and on (there are over 1,000, after all).
These are the thousand entrepreneurs who’ve poured their blood, sweat and tears into making all our lives a little better. While governments are there to set the rules, it’s the innovators and entrepreneurs – alongside those who back them and work for them – who really change the world.
If CGT is hiked for entrepreneurs as many fear, two things will happen. First, some entrepreneurs will leave the country. According to a survey by Evelyn Partners, 48% of business owners would consider moving their businesses abroad if taxes are increased. Similarly, the Fintech Founders letter claims 43% of founders are considering relocating out of the country.
Of course, no matter what happens on 30 October, we all know that half the country’s wealth creators aren’t going to suddenly up sticks and leave. But some will – potentially quite a lot, based on conversations I’ve been having with them. We don’t need to compete with jurisdictions that don’t charge any CGT – Britain is better than that – but we do need to be competitive with the continent and the US. We also need to show some humility before ripping up the policies that have made us the best place in Europe to start and grow a business.
Second, much more pernicious – and what won’t be so easy to see – will be the people who decide not to start a business in the first place. Why try to build a company to challenge a US tech giant when you can work for one? Why start a new bank when you can just work for one that’s already there? And if you are spinning your company out of a British university, why build it in the UK?
We all know personal wealth isn’t the only thing that drives entrepreneurs. But we all respond to incentives – or, as it may be, disincentives.
Three Big Ideas is our weekly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.
In this week, Eamonn Ives wonders why air conditioning gets such a bad wrap, Anastasia Bektimirova discusses how much ‘white space’ science and technology R&D should get in an industrial strategy, and Philip Salter writes about how society could change once we get truly powerful artificial intelligence.
❄️ Eamonn Ives, Research Director
It’s about this time of the year that British people enter into a ritual debate – “have you turned on your heating yet?” And though some may tut at those who crack early, nobody in their right mind would expect someone to go without artificial warmth full stop.
So I’ve always wondered why this logic doesn’t apply to air conditioning for keeping homes cool when it’s too hot. And it seems I’m not alone. In a recent blog, the always reliable environmental economist Hannah Ritchie explains in great detail the health impacts of a changing climate. She concludes by saying: “If you’re looking for a challenge to work on over the next decade, innovating on better air conditioning technologies that are cheaper and more efficient, would be very high-impact. Billions of people who would benefit hugely from air conditioning currently can’t afford it.”
I am sure there’s an entrepreneur or two who’s working on this. But if we think they could benefit from an extra helping hand, maybe we can learn from the policies of the not too distant past about how to stimulate more innovation?
🌠 Anastasia Bektimirova, Researcher
I spent last Thursday in the increasingly exciting White City Innovation District, attending the inaugural conference for Imperial’s Centre for Sectoral Economic Performance. The event focused on the many flavours industrial strategies come in, with learnings from the US, Singapore and Sweden, along with deep-dives into sectors where the UK could build a competitive edge, from aerospace and tidal power to biopharma and fine chemicals.
One recurring point was if and how much room industrial strategy should allow for “white space” when it comes to science and technology. When discussing Industry Transformation Maps for 23 sectors developed as part of Singapore’s industrial policy, Arnoud De Meyer, Emeritus Professor and former President at Singapore Management University, mentioned that officials did wonder how to tackle the need for “white space”, and if they should invest in the 24th sector that is not there yet. The same question was put to a panel of present and former MPs. Chi Onwurah, Chair of the Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, said that “the challenge for industrial strategy is the sectors of the future”, and that “there is the need for a vision for the evolution of sectors”.
The same question occupies the finest minds at DSIT at the moment. Yesterday, Science Minister Sir Patrick Vallance told the Lords Science and Technology Committee that protecting and growing the basic curiosity-driven science is one of his five priorities. He stressed the importance of:
“...understanding what percentage of total spend on curiosity-driven research we want to have as a country that is a knowledge-based economy and being explicit about it. That’s where we need to get to for the Spending Review 2025, and try to be much clearer about it. Because it gives the research councils the ability to understand where they can do things a bit differently and take risks on very early research, which might have no obvious application.”
Those who might find the need for “white space” hard to justify shouldn’t forget that many sectoral niches underpinning today’s industrial strategies in different parts of the world were once a product of curiosity-driven research themselves, or, as Sir Vallance puts it, “that is the work that ultimately is the goose that lays the golden eggs that in years to come creates all the economic and societal benefits”. It’s a strategic investment. Today’s oversight might become tomorrow’s missed fortune.
🧠 Philip Salter, Founder
While patriotic Brits might want to focus on the common nationality of Geoffrey Hinton and Demis Hassabis, of wider import to humanity is that the latest Nobel prizes in physics and chemistry went to AI researchers. This surely won’t be the last time. Soon it might become the only option. At some point in the future, it may become redundant to give humans prizes altogether.
Dario Amodei, Co-Founder and CEO of AI giant Anthropic has written an essay on how AI could transform the world for the better. Better known for talking about the risks, in the delightfully titled Machines of Loving Grace, Amodei lays it all on the table. Once we get truly powerful AI – a “country of geniuses in a datacenter” – which may be as soon as 2026, in the following five to ten years our world will be turned upside down: “the defeat of most diseases, the growth in biological and cognitive freedom, the lifting of billions of people out of poverty to share in the new technologies, a renaissance of liberal democracy and human rights.” Ideas don’t come much bigger than this. The essay deserves to be read in full.
As Matt Clancy discusses on X, many economists think technological diffusion takes much longer, but there is no getting away from the fact that there is a growing consensus that we’re on the precipice of something significant. While Amodei is at pains to avoid the language of science fiction, it’s impossible to avoid the convergence. How long before we’re catching crumbs from the table?
On Friday we launched an open letter to the Chancellor on reported changes to CGT. Over 500 entrepreneurs have already signed it. Here are the first 500. You can read and sign the letter here.
Philip Salter – Founder, The Entrepreneurs Network
Melissa Morris – Founder & CEO, Lantum
Martin Frost CBE – Co-Founder, CMR Surgical
Giles Andrews OBE – Co-Founder, Zopa
Rishi Khosla – Co-Founder & CEO, OakNorth Bank
Emma Jones CBE – Founder, Enterprise Nation
Justin Basini – Co-Founder & CEO, The ClearScore Group
Victor Riparbelli Rasmussen – Co-Founder & CEO, Synthesia
Erika Brodnock MBE – Co-Founer & CEO, Kinhub
Whitney Hawkings – Founder & CEO, FLOWERBX
Matthew Hare OBE – Founder & CEO, Zzoomm
David Benigson – Founder & CEO, Signal AI
Christoph Rieche – Co-Founder & CEO, iwoca
Robin Tombs – Co-founder & CEO, Yoti
Anna Maxwell – Founder & CEO, Maxwellia
Sabrina Del Prete – Founder & CEO, Kore Labs
Ann Kramer – Founder & CEO, The Electrospinning Company
Tim Chong – Co-founder & CEO, Yonder
Thesokkumar Jivajirajah – Co-Founder, Yonder
David Jarvis – Founder & CEO, Griffin Bank
Sarah McVittie – Co-Founder, Dressipi
Brad Goodall – Founder & CEO, Banked
Alexander Mifsud – Co-Founder & CEO, Weavr.io
Jeff Lynn – Co-Founder & Chairman, Republic Europe
Eddie Harrison – Co-Founder, Navro
James Dean – Founder & CEO, Sensat
Nigel Purves – Co-Founder & CEO, Wayhome
Darren Jobling – Co-Founder & CEO, ZeroLight
John Goodall – Founder & CEO, Landbay
Richard Mabey – Founder & CEO, Juro
Phelim Bradley – Co-Founder & CEO, Prolific
Robert Griffin – Co-Founder & CEO, MIRACL
Andrew Yates – Co-Founder & CEO, FullCircl
Michael Nabarro – Co-Founder & CEO, Spektrix
Ali Afshar – Co-Founder & CEO, Mytos
Matthew Dreaper – Co-Founder, Oxford Space Systems, KEIT, Fusion Energy Partners
Will Stewart – Co-Founder & CEO, Northflank
Iain Griffin – Founder & CEO, Seatfrog
Steve Coulson – Founder & CEO, Kitt Technology
JP Doumeng – Co-Founder & CEO, Napo Pet Insurance
Will Goodwin – Co-founder, Tumelo
Dev Amratia – Co-Founder & CEO, nPlan
Alan Mosca – Co-Founder & CTO, nPlan
Aldo Monteforte – Founder & CEO, The Floow
Asi Sharabi – Co-Founder & CEO, Wonderbly
Anthony Eskinazi – Founder & CEO, JustPark
Chris Edson – Co-Founder & CEO, Second Nature
Nick Jones – Co-Founder & CEO, Zumo
Louise Birritteri – Founder & CEO, Pikl
Alex Depledge MBE – Founder & CEO, Resi
Richard Moross – Founder & CEO, moo.com
George Graham – Co-Founder & CEO, Wolf & Badger
Deepak Ravindran – Co-Founder, Oddbox
Ashutosh Bhatt – Founder & CEO, Pillar
Naimish Gohil – Founder & CEO, Satchel
Timothy Brownstone – Founder & CEO, KYMIRA
Freddie Green – Co-Founder, Minimum
Amon Ghaiumy – Co-Founder & CEO, Ophelos
Mark McDermott – Co-Founder & CEO, ScreenCloud
Ellie Webb – Founder & CEO, Caleño Drinks
Alexander Lempka – Co-Founder & CEO, Connect Earth
Will Mason – Founder & CEO, Infact Systems
Nick Perrett – Founder & CEO, Prosper
Pip Murray – Founder & CEO, Pip & Nut
Toby Austin – Founder & CEO, Beauhurst
Johannes Solzbach – Co-Founder & CEO, Clustermarket
Laura Towart – Founder & CEO, My Personal Therapeutics
Fraser Smeaton – Founder & CEO, MorphCostumes
Tamzin Lent – Founder & CEO, Where You At
Llewellyn Kinch – Founder & CEO, Switchd
Anthony Rose – Co-founder & CEO, SeedLegals
Miguel Martinez – Co-Founder, Signal AI
Karl Deady – Founder, Cinos
Lisa Robinson – Founder & CEO, companiions
Stephen Crosher – Co-Founder & CEO, RheEnergise
Justin Fitzpatrick – Co-Founder, FullCircl
Duncan Cheatle – Founder & CEO, Learn Amp
Constantine Karampatsos – Founder & CEO, Good Life Sorted
Jing Ouyang – Co-Founder, Patchwork Health
Wayne Lloyd – Founder & CEO, Smarter Contracts
Brian Harrison – Co-Founder & CEO, Swoon Editions
Raj Meghani – Co-Founder, BLOCKAPT
Lyndsey Simpson – Founder & CEO, 55/Redefined
Pip Wilson – Co-Founder & CEO, Amicable
Hon Lung Keith Tsui – Co-Founder & CEO, Medwise AI
Simon Banks – Founder CSL Group
David Boon – Founder & CEO, Dijuno
Claire Harrison – Founder & CEO, GetSetGo Group
Ben Prouty – Co-Founder & CEO, PonchoPay
Sarah Bolt – Co-Founder & CEO, Humankind Ventures
Terry Canning – Co-Founder & CEO. CattleEye
Beth Michael – Co-Founder, Streeva
Pauline Paterson – Founder & CEO, Dr.PAWPAW
Caroline Goodman – Founder & CEO, Institutional Protection Services
Dr Diana Hodgins MBE – Founder & CEO, Dynamic Metrics
Gary Jones – Co-Founder & CEO, MediMusic
Rupert Schneider – Founder & CEO, Gardenia Technologies
Dominic Hall – Co-Founder & CTO, Biographica
Glen Calvert – Co-Founder & CEO, Kaizan
Lucinda O'Connor – Founder & CEO, Clothes Doctor
Katerina Pljaskovova – Founder & CEO, Fair HQ
Daniel Howitt – Co-Founder & CEO, Recap
Richard Turnbull – Founder & CTO, Officely
Tina Warner-Keogh – Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Warner’s Distillery
Matt Milligan – Co-Founder, Uhubs
Daniel Gill – Founder & CEO, Augnet
Graham Cook – Co-Founder & CFO, RheEnergise
Jay Orlean-Taub – Co-Founder & CEO, Sipgood
Neil Taub – Co-Founder, ZoomDoc
Cindy van Niekerk – Founder & CEO, Umazi
Irene McAleese – Co-Founder & CSO, See.Sense
Tariq Attia – CEO, IW Capital
Sarah Montgomery – Co-Founder & CEO, Infyos
Lara Mott – Co-Founder & CEO, ImproveWell
Areeb Siddiqui – Founder & CEO, Kestrl
Dr Cristian Gherhes – Founder & CEO, Lexverify
Janthana Kaenprakhamroy – Founder & CEO, Tapoly
Jonny Philp – Co-Founder & Director, Nursem Skincare
Kate Jillings – Co-Founder, ToucanTech
Dr Paul Reynolds – Founder & CEO, FSD Active
Tom Barltrop – Co-Founder, SuperFi
Chris Jackson – Co-Founder, OptAxe
Nadia Simonds – Founder, Lune & Wild
Philip Callow – Founder & CEO, Rosetta Risk Management
Leo Kellgren-Parker – Founder & CEO, LIVR
Sarah Dowzell – Co-Founder, Natural HR
Ben Maughan – Co-Founder, Add to Event
Jason Mohr – Founder & CEO, LoveJunk
Tamsin Dewhurst – Founder & CEO, Uptree
Seb Wallace – Co-Founder, Further
Johnny Paterson – Co-Founder Dr.PAWPAW
Olivier Scaramucci – Founder & CEO, Boutique Brands
Rachael Grimaldi – Co-Founder & CEO, CardMedic
Alistair Sergeant – Founder &. CEO, Niico
Edward Hall – Founder & CEO, Qualification Check
Alex Freeman – Co-Founer & CEO, Stance Fitness
Steve Monk – Founder, Good Guys Bakehouse
Sam Peters – Co-Founder & CEO, Vyde
Jason Dowzell – Founder & CEO, Natural HR
Akber Tahir – Founder & CEO, Pharmovo AI
Chloe Sweden – Founder & CEO, Lowr
Rowan Jackson – Co-Founder & Executive Chair, Promising Outomes
Barbara Gottardi – Co-Founder & CEO, Finbridge Global
Betty Bonnardel-Azzarelli MBE – Founder & CEO, Farmer Charlie
Mark Taylor – Co-Founder, BizNest
Gary Hunter – Founder & CEO, Redu Group
Kuntal Fisher – Founder & CEO, FIECON
Paddy Willis – Co-Founder, Mission Ventures
Richard Heggie – Co-Founder, Enginuity
Oli Bates – Founder & CEO, 4WALLS
Felicia Meyerowitz Singh – Co-Founder, Engage Smarter AI
Robert Sims – CEO, Sum Vivas
Steven South – Founder & CEO, Hydra EVC
Lily Elsner – Co-Founder & CEO, Jack Fertility
Mercurius Saad – Co-Founder & CEO, Tutorbloc
Adam Allen-Rogers – Co-Founder, AI Fit
Saideep Gogineni – Founder & CEO, Novocuris
Julia Kemp – Founder, Pawpass
Ken Hendricks – Co-Founder & CEO, Basepilot
Dominic Ponniah – Co-Founder & CEO, Cleanology
Sam Soares – Co-Founder & CEO, MPWR-365
Joseph Burns – Co-Founder & CEO, Reformed IT
Frederick Mark Tughan – Co-Founder & CEO, Comic Enterprises
Lorna MacLean – Co-Founder & CEO, Demetria
Kevin Withane – Founder & CEO, Diversity X
Jon Dobinson – Founder & CEO, other group
Dom Hawes – Founder & CEO, Selbey Anderson
Amanda Coulson – Founder & CEO, SVC Solutions
Ollie Scott – Founder & CEO, UNKNOWN
Kerry Burn – Co-Founder & CEO, 848 Group
Ben Putley – Co-Founder & CEO, Alkimi
Dermot O’Grady – Co-Founder & CEO, Ardent Tide
Michael Venner – CEO, Auva Certification
Julian Daniel – Founder & CEO, BSB Construction
Alan Smith – Founder & CEO, Capital Asset Management
Charles Groome – Co-Founder & CEO, Everna
Simon Francis – Founder & CEO, Flock Associates
Stephen Findlay – CEO, Growth CFO
Neil Davidson – CEO, HeyHuman
Dominic Wheatley – CEO, Interactive Partners
Dr Frazer Thompson – CEO, Invicta Tweed plc
David Whittaker – CEO, Keystone Property Finance
Dips Patel – CEO, KitKing
Simon Barry – Founder & CEO, Knowbotics AI
Matt McDonnell – CEO, Medicare EMS Group UK
Jason Pearson – CEO, On Chain International
Edward Bussey – CEO, Oxford Science Enterprises
Andrew Pullman – CEO, People Risk Solutions
Tom O’Hagan – CEO, PXC
Charles Skinner – CEO, Restore plc
Natasha Guerra – Co-Founder & CEO, Runway East
Tom Perry – Founder & CEO, Sherpa
Alan Wing-King – Founder & CEO, Syntegra Group
Leonard Evans – Founder & CEO, The Profs
Emma Mirrington – CEO, The Talent Labs
Christian Edwards – Co-Founder & CEO, This is Tommy
Shain Khoja – Founder & CEO, Thriving Ai
Amy Hopper – Founder & CEO, TOA Group
Aaron Ross – CEO, Vix Technology
Dinesh Dhamija – Founder & Chairman, Copper Beech Group
Joe Nelson – Chief Strategy Officer, Heartfelt Technologies
Georgi Rollings – Co-CEO, Starfish Accounting
Saudenh Doctzan – Co-Director, May Sum Restaurant Nottingham
Hannes Verschueren – Co-Founder & CEO, atomic
Rupert Patrick – Co-Founder & CEO, James Eadie
Emily Gill – Co-Founder & CEO, LEVRA
Paddy Stobbs – Co-Founder & CEO, Stackfix
Adam Thomas Orme – Co-Founder & CEO, Trinity Space Technologies
Ami Daniel – Co-Founder & CEO, Windward
Carlo Keenan Ross – Co-Founder & COO, Bridge
Jake Wells – Co-Founder & COO, Meshed
Wil Benton – Co-Founder & Director, Metta. VP, Aerospace Xelerated
Clara Latham – Co-Founder & Managing Director, Deeply Foods
Jill Willis – Co-Founder, Attract & Engage
David Turney – Co-Founder, Avery Law
Tom Griffiths – Co-Founder, BitCompli
Jag Singh – Co-Founder, Bricktrade
Harrison Thomas – Co-Founder, Elephants
Rune Sovndahl – Co-Founder, Fantastic Services
Sunjit Saroya – Co-Founder, GiroStor
Hetesh Pal – Co-Founder, GiroStor
Sophie Eden – Co-Founder, Gordon & Eden
Sam Waterfall – Co-Founder, Greenwood Foods
Edward Wijnen – Co-Founder, Intuicon.ai
Paul Billingham – Co-Founder, Knight Corporate Finance
Ash Dey – Co-Founder, Lyfe
Will Taylor – Co-founder, Old House Labs
Fabricio Chavarro – Co-Founder, Otravista Consulting LLP
Tim Simpson – Co-Founder, Pinchful
Bridie Cunningham – Co-Founder, Portman Scott
Robert Irvin – Co-Founder, RMS Partners
Colin Weston – Co-Founder, TidyChoice
Andrew Dougan – Co-Founder, Viital
Guy Pengelley – Co-Founder, Viresco Group
Dr Nikhit Anilbhai – Co-Founder, Your Cue
Sonakshi Senthil – Co-Founder, Your Cue
Charlotte Pegg – Co-Founder, ZEN8
Andrew Stephen Brode – Director & Former Chair, RWS Holdings PLC
Cain Ullah – Founder & Board Director, Red Badger
Zoe Robson – Founder & CEO, Strateva Group
Rudy Parengal – Founder & CEO, Abjak
James Gozney – Founder & CEO, Aslan
Spencer Gallagher – Founder & CEO, Cactus
Becks Armstrong – Founder & CEO, Clarity
Ahana Banerjee – Founder & CEO, Clear
Suzy Ferreira – Founder & CEO, Dinie
Emma Shipley – Founder & CEO, Emma J Shipley
Matt Norbury – Founder & CEO, Epoints Rewards
Gary Mead – Founder & CEO, euroloos
Matt Jonns – Founder & CEO, Founder + Lightning
Grace Castillo – Founder & CEO, Gifftid
Chris Twigg – Founder & CEO, Inner Circle Consulting
Richard Oastler – Founder & CEO, KPI Tree
Rob Reeve – Founder & CEO, LexTego
Claire Mason – Founder & CEO, Man Bites Dog
Johnny Manning – Founder & CEO, Manning's Tutors
Diane Banks – Founder & CEO, Northbank Talent Management
Serena Fordham – Founder & CEO, ProspHER
Rosie Hewat – Founder & CEO, Rosie’s People
Sean Ramsden MBE – Founder & CEO, Sean Ramsden International
Cathy Moseley – Founder & CEO, Supernatural Food
Emmanuel Cohen – Founder & CEO, The Armadillo Group
Amanda Thomson – Founder & CEO, Thomson & Scott
Alla Ouvarova – Founder & CEO, Two Chicks
Kate Bright – Founder & CEO, UMBRA International Group
Merilee Karr – Founder & CEO, UnderTheDoormat Group
Francis Toye – Founder & CEO, Unilink Software
Damian McLaughlin – Founder & CEO, Urban Phoenix
Warren Davies – Founder & CEO, Utilize
Jonathan Summerfield – Founder & CEO, Xiatech
Joe Seddon – Founder & CEO, Zero Gravity
Mats Stigzelius – Founder & Chair, Takumi
Mark Sweeny – Founder & CEO, de Novo Solutions
Bev Shah – Founder & Co-CEO, City Hive
Felix Mitchell – Founder & Co-CEO, Instant Impact
Charlotte Guzzo – Founder & COO, Sano Genetics
Nazim Valimahomed – Founder & CPO, Kroo Bank
Jonathan Falkingham MBE – Founder & Creative Director, Urban Splash
Thomas Schilling – Founder & Director, Tugela People
Tony Craddock – Founder & Director, General of The Payments Association
Adam Fudakowski – Founder & Executive Director, Switchee
Nicholas R Morgan – Founder & Group CEO, We Group
Patricia Ypma – Founder & Managing Director, Spark Legal and Policy Consulting
Stephen Britt – Founder & Managing Director, Anchor Storage
Paul Theile – Founder & Managing Director, MEL (Holdings)
Will Linay – Founder & Managing Director, Stratstone Developments
Daniel Philip Astaire – Founder & Managing Partner, Grosvenor Law
Jarmila Halovsky-Yu – Founder & MD, YUnique Marketing
Bundeep Singh Rangar – Founder & President, PremFina
Tom Bohills – Founder & Principal, Founders Law
Pascal de Mul – Founder & CEO, Setmixer
Nadine Campbell – Founder, ACE Entrepreneurs
David Horne – Founder, Add then Multiply
Alison Shadrack – Founder, Adia PR
Alison Cork – Founder, Alison at Home
Christopher Robinson – Founder, Ampsahead
Sarah Turner – Founder, Angel Academe
Jason Mohr – Founder, Anyjunk
Jason Living – Founder, Argyle Square Property Group
Rachel Hayward – Founder, Ask the Chameleon
Peadar Coyle – Founder, AudioStack
Simon Jones – Founder, Baanx
Robert Hurst – Founder, Bengeho
Harriet Hastings – Founder, Biscuiteers
Stefano Di Gregorio – Founder, Boogi
Oliver Noakes – Founder, Boulders
Dominika Minarovic – Founder, BYBI Beauty
Lucy Chamberlain – Founder, C&C Search
Nadia Crandall – Founder, Capshore Partners
Shernaz Engineer – Founder, Cerity Appointments
Guy Tolhurst – Founder, Fintel
Niklas Friedberg – Founder, Clustermarket
Sid Pourfalah – Founder, Concrete4Change
Nick Smith – Founder, Cordel PLC
Daniel Szor – Founder, Cotswolds Distillery
Louisa Jackson – Founder, Craic
Martine Abboud – Founder, Creo Incubator
Pawel Kaminski – Founder & CTO, Founder + Lightning
Douglas Emslie – Founder, Cuil Bay Capital
Akansha Pandey – Founder, Cureline Pvt
Dan Martin – Founder, Dan Martin Content & Events
Catherine Bedford – Founder, Dashel
Hani Armstrong – Founder, Dengi Media
Paul Angeli – Founder, digitalPACT
David Forsyth – Founder, Document Data Group
Christian Nentwich – Founder, Duco
David Greenberg – Founder, Eave
Laura Sofie – Founder, Elevate Personal Finance
Amanda Cook – Founder, Excellent Gourmet Trading
Emma Little – Founder, ExecSpace
James Van Den Heule – Founder, Fenton Whelan
Ed Hill – Founder, Fiddlie Technology
Cordelia Meacher – Founder, FieldHouse Associates
Shaun Ng – Founder, Fifth Row Technologies
Sam Smith – Founder, finnCap
Russell Stinson – Founder, Fireheart Coffee
Robert Van Den Bergh – Founder, Fluent
Valeria Vahorovska – Founder, Fondy
Dr Jason Zheng Jiang – Founder, FOSTER Technology
Daniel Wardle – Founder, Founder Sales Club
Christina Richardson – Founder, Foundology
Danny Hall – Founder, FSE Online
Nigel Farren – Founder, Fundability
Ingrid Murray – Founder, Fundfast
Sarah Lloyd-Hughes – Founder, Ginger Training & Coaching
Maggie Chen – Founder, Girls in Charge Initiative
Russ Shaw CBE – Founder, Global Tech Advocates
Sean Kiernan – Founder, Greengage
Joe Devereux-Kelly – Founder, GrowGrows
Kajal Sanghrajka – Founder, Growth Hub Global
Martin Leuw – Founder, Growth4Good
Stuart Barr – Founder, Hey Maestro
Tim Keaveney – Founder, Homethings
Adam Amos – Founder, Iceberg Ventures
Simon Thethi – Founder, Indicium Ventures
Rushina Shah – Founder, Insane Grain
Caitlin Rozario – Founder, interlude
Jamie Darkin – Founder, JD Enterprises
Kevin Bath – Founder, JimJams Spreads
Kate Macdonald – Founder, Kadence Consultancy
Ailsa Kiely – Founder, Kiely Transformative Growth
Mark O’Neil – Founder, Kinetic Business Advice
Lucy Minton – Founder, Kitt Offices
Matthew Jack – Founder, Kythera AI
Lucy Read – Founder, LA Personal Products
Mark Kingsley-Williams – Founder, LawPanel
Jude Jennison – Founder, Leaders by Nature
Richard Carter – Founder, Lopay
Gail Laser – Founder, Love Barnet
Gary Stewart – Founder, Lyfeguard
Charlie Bradshaw – Founder, Matrix APA (UK)
Max Beech – Founder, Maxed Labs
Miriam Dervan – Founder, MDE Services
Douglas Orr – Founder, Message Matrix
Clare Shaw – Founder, Mini Mozart
Georgina Bowman – Founder, MYSHOOTS®️
Eren Kocyigit – Founder, NBT
Kieran South – Founder, North Star
Keir Carnie – Founder, Nuud
Lydia Carrick – Founder, Apputee
Samir Patel – Founder, Omnia Housing
Kerry Morgan – Founder, Outsource financial Solutions
Catrin MacDonnell – Founder, Papadeli Foods
Kelly McCabe – Founder, Perci Health
Emma Walford – Founder, Perigon Partners
George Phillips – Founder, Phillips Hobbies
Sathya Smith – Founder, Piper Technology
Stefan Husanu – Founder, Pith & Stem
Jamie Beaumont – Founder, Playter
Mark Hawes – Founder, Potential HR
Nazanin nankali – Founder, Powertutors
Rachael Twumasi-Corson – Founder, PPTCS
Tony Harrison – Founder, Printercare
Amrit Lotay – Founder, Product Sphere
Anthony Gale – Founder, PromoLens
Edmond Ibrahimi – Founder, Propertalis
James Hadley – Founder, Property from Pensions
Matthew Pearce – Founder, PuriFire Labs
Steven Matthew Hyde – Founder, Push Group
Imogen Wethered – Founder, Qudini
Rachel Vosper – Founder, Rachel Vosper
Simon Newell – Founder, Renewell Water UK
Kevin Brittain – Founder, Runpreneur
Catherine K Jolly – Founder, Rutherford Glen Global
Jack McMahon – Founder, Saint Group
Charlie Kenny – Founder, Salve
Benedikt von – Founder, Sanome
James Digva – Founder, Sauce Shop
Laura Harnett – Founder, Seep
Cecile Reinaud – Founder, Seraphine Maternity
Oliver ashness – Founder, SimplyCook
Pallav (Paul) Naha-Biswas – Founder, Sixley & Knowledgemotion
Sarah Graham – Founder, Skills4Stem Group
Hussain Hilli – Founder, Skrap
Damien Gray – Founder, SOAK’d OATS
Gareth Deakin – Founder, Sonorous Consulting
David Herbada – Founder, Spectroma
Melwin mehta – Founder, Sterling Investments
Craig Jamieson – Founder, Straw Innovations
Martin Banbury – Founder, Streetify.com
Katie Lopes – Founder, Stripe & Stare
Ben Lakey – Founder, Syndi Health
Rayan Bannai – Founder, Table for Ten
Bevan Thomas – Founder, Tahu Capital
Rakhitha Lakshman Dias – Founder, Terias Consulting
Georgina Cotton – Founder, The Accounts Shop
Manya Klempner – Founder, The Boxing House
Diane Young – Founder, The Drum
Matthew Freeman – Founder, The Numbers Studio
Torie Blythe-Richards – Founder, The Partnership Collection
Harry Turpin – Founder, The Savourists
Leah Brown – Founder, The WayFinders Group
Amelia Rope – Founder, Third Time Lucky
Dan Amos – Founder, Tools for Schools
Claire Trachet – Founder, Trachet Advisory
Harry Bremner – Founder, Tuggs
Gus Tugendhat – Founder, Tussell
Dr David Webster – Founder, UK/Romania Business
Adrian Wong – Founder, Ultraviolet Venture Community
Lucas Johnston – Founder, Umber
TJ Lee – Founder, Vagabond Digital
Alex Davies – Founder, Wealth Club
Simon Hague – Founder, Wheresmylunch
Will Polston – Founder, Will Polston Coaching and Training
Simon Woodroffe OBE – Founder, YO! Sushi and YOTEL
Stephen Phillips – Founder, Zappi
Victor Jarland – Founder, ZEN8 Sports
Edward Goodchild – Founder, Zendht
James Basden – Founder, Zenobe
Chris Parsonson – Founder & CEO, Solve Intelligence
Adam Spence – Founding Partner, Edition Capital
Logan Naidu – Group CEO, Kernel Global
Jason Yeomans – CEO, Iglu Tech Group
Nicolas Marquez Arnedo – Managing Director, Bocking Homes
Nicola Barden – Managing Director, BSF Solid Surfaces
Daniel Holloway – Managing Director, Budget Waste Management
Alexander Low – Managing Director, DCM insights
Stuart Wade – Managing Director, Empire Manufacturing
Jamie Willsdon – Managing Director, Future Group
Alina Cooper – Managing Director, GetSetGo
Jeff Barnett – Managing Director, Industrial Door Systems
Mark Brackley – Managing Director, InfiniSki
Stephen Burke – Managing Director, John Burke Associates
Scot William Gardiner – Managing Director, New Waverley Partners
Dan Mitchell – Managing Director, Oakheart Property
Ian Banks – Managing Director, One to One Personnel
Samuel Bowen – Managing Director, Opal Black Insurance Services
Peter Bowles – Managing Director, Original BTC
Ian Davis – Managing Director, Packaged Pumps Systems
Edward Freeman – Managing Director, Rare Origins
Ces Terranova – Managing Director, Red Earth Studio
Clive Bonny – Managing Director, Strategic Management Partners
Matthew Shanahan – Managing Director, Stream Networks
James Hook – Managing Director, SubVision Surveys & SkyVision Surveys
Terry Upham – Managing Director, Tau Advisory
Angela Prentner-Smith – Managing Director, This is Milk
Jaysri Thangam Ananthapadmanabhan – Managing Director, TrillionDollars
Charles Cameron – Managing Partner, Cameron Barney Herbst Hilgenfeldt
Kevin Tan – Managing Partner, Upsilon Family
Irina Pafomova – Managing Partner, Zestic AI
Anton Derlyatka – Co-Founder & CEO, Sweatcoin
Victoria Johnson – Founder & CEO, VetCT
Lucy Walker – Founder, AM Insights
Flynn Robinson – Founder & CEO, scOS
Michael Blakeley – Founder, Entrepreneurs Collective
Harry Cruickshank – Founder, Cruickshank Associates
Ruth Simmonds – Co-Founder, TACaccess
Kelly Sinclair – Founder, Vero Tech Sales
Piers Mummery – Co-Founder, Crunch Technologies International
Marcus Love – Co-Founder, Love Ventures
Jeffrey Bartlett – Director, Nurture Ventures
Sean Cook – Founder & Managing Director, Urban & Regional
Steve Monk – Founder, Good Guys Bakehouse
Liza Levy – Founder, Unravel Health
Hasan Toprakkaya – Founder, Sociality.io
Sam Gordon – Co-Founder Gordon & Eden
Lilijan Sulejmanovic – Founder, Bardo Ventures
Toinette Vicars – Founder, Dot-Connectors
Gabriel Isserlis – Founder,Tutti & SuperScout
Dean Hills – Co-Founder, EDR Technology
The role of any good think tank or business group is to speak frankly to whoever is in Government. As many of you will already know, we’re asking entrepreneurs to sign a letter to the Chancellor following reports that she is considering hiking Capital Gains Tax (CGT) and further restricting Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR) in the forthcoming Budget.
If you are a founder, you can read and sign our letter here. Whoever you are, please share it far and wide: email, WhatsApp or Slack groups, social media, carrier pigeon etc. The more, the mightier.
In essence, it argues that restricting BADR or hiking CGT rates would jeopardise the success of Britain’s startup ecosystem by enormously weakening the incentive individuals have to start and build businesses. It would also reduce the incentive for startups to offer employee stock options or shares, making it even harder for startups to attract the talent they need to scale.
Any revenue it might raise in the short term would be more than offset by the damage it does to long-run productivity by stifling the growth of future startups.
Below is the letter in full so you can circulate it among your own networks. Previous letters we have coordinated have garnered a lot of support and made a real difference to policy (see here, here, here, here, here, and here). This one has already been signed by over 200 entrepreneurs, including more than a few household names, but we’d like to get even more signatures.
The stakes are high. According to Evelyn Partners, one in three business owners are fast-tracking sales as capital gains raid looms. This is a response (included anonymously with permission) from a foreign-born founder in our network who started his deep tech business in the UK and has raised millions: "Not gonna lie, in my circles people are not signing letters, they are already moving country. Even *discussing* increasing CGT was enough. I know founders who have left the UK only for this reason since the election. I don’t go on record on this but it is serious."
I respectfully disagree that it’s not worth signing letters. We have shifted policy in the past with your help. But I regretfully agree that it is serious.
If you didn’t get my email about this letter, sign up here. Any journalists who want to get in touch about this should drop me email.
The Letter
Dear Chancellor,
Entrepreneurs represent a uniquely important segment of any country’s economy – but especially our own. Britain can rightly claim to be one of the best countries in the world to start and scale a business, and that reputation has been carefully earned over recent decades.
The risks entrepreneurs take in striking out and starting new and innovative companies are essential to moving the economy forward. From startups developing solutions to the climate crisis to those working to revolutionise healthcare, entrepreneurs not only create businesses that provide good, high-paid jobs, they also generate taxes to pay for public services and help tackle pressing social issues too.
At the last general election, many entrepreneurs put their faith in what they recognised was a changed Labour Party – heartened by statements you made about being the party of wealth creation and your promise to give investors the certainty they need to fuel growth. Reporting in the lead up to the Autumn Budget, however, has given many in Britain’s thriving entrepreneurial community pause for thought.
Chief among our concerns are the rumoured restrictions to Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR) and rise in the rate of Capital Gains Tax (CGT). According to The Guardian, your officials have modelled the impact of increasing CGT as high as 33% to 39%. Higher CGT or any restrictions on BADR would make this relief less competitive at a time when the rest of the world is making their reliefs more competitive. It would mean the UK has the second-highest CGT rate in Europe, and jeopardise the success of our country’s startup ecosystem by enormously weakening the incentive individuals have to build businesses. Reporting by The Telegraph gives us some hope that the 39% figure may not be on the table – but businesses need clear and definitive reassurances right now.
This applies as much to British entrepreneurs as it does to founders from abroad who currently view Britain as an attractive destination in which to base their company – previous research from The Entrepreneurs Network revealed that four out of ten of Britain’s fastest-growing companies had a foreign-born founder or co-founder.
Many fledgling startups offer employees stock options or shares as part of their compensation package as they cannot compete with the higher salaries of established big corporates. Further restrictions to BADR would reduce this incentive, making it even harder for startups to attract the talent they need to scale while denying workers the chance to own a piece of Britain's growing companies.
Policymakers should also understand that entrepreneurship is an engine for further economic growth. By discouraging entrepreneurs from starting and growing their businesses, HM Treasury could well end up lowering the tax take overall. Indeed, this is what its own previous modelling suggests. Leading economists are also much more likely to agree than disagree that taxing capital income at a permanently lower rate than labour income would result in higher average long-term prosperity.
Given the straitened public finances it is understandable to leave no stone unturned when looking to balance the books. However, any temptation to rapidly and radically hike CGT should be resisted. Any revenue it might raise in the short term would likely be more than offset by the damage it does to long-run productivity by stifling the growth of future startups.
Our hard-fought reputation as a place where entrepreneurs can successfully build a business has been one of Britain’s economic saving graces. We, the undersigned, urge you to ensure our CGT regime remains competitive and encouraging for founders wanting to get Britain growing again.
Lunch & Learn
Our good friends at Enterprise Nation have secured the Small Business Minister, Gareth Thomas MP, for their highly recommended Lunch and Learn series. The session will take place online on 13th November from 1pm to 1.30pm. To register for the free event, please click here.
Education, Education, Recommendations
Our other good friends at Youth Business International (YBI) and Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) have launched a comprehensive Youth Entrepreneurship Framework. The framework brings a fresh perspective on harnessing the opportunity of youth entrepreneurship. It includes 50 actionable recommendations, with each recommendation tied to a case study in GEN’s Atlas – the world’s largest compendium of entrepreneurship policies.
Three Big Ideas is our weekly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.
In this week, Anastasia Bektimirova writes about thinking boldly, Eamonn Ives looks at the productivity of British ports, and Philip Salter discusses what defines a great founder.
⚡️ Anastasia Bektimirova, Researcher
Ask an investor about the differences between British and US founders, and you’ll likely hear a familiar narrative about the deficit of ambition. They’ll tell you that British startups are not going after big markets, seek an early exit, or are pitching cautious rather than boldly optimistic sales numbers. In a recent World of DaaS podcast interview, when asked what conventional wisdom or advice he thinks is generally bad, Matt Clifford (Entrepreneur First co-founder and ARIA Chair) replied:
“There's a very annoying thing that happens in Europe. A lot of entrepreneurs get advice like ‘that’s a good idea, but do something just a little bit less ambitious because then you're more likely to succeed.’ A lot of people have an intuition that there should be an inverse correlation between odds of success and ambition – if you're trying to do something really hard, you're less likely to succeed. But it is much easier to succeed by being more ambitious, because in the end, it comes down to: can you attract talent and can you attract capital? Guess what? They're attracted to ambition. I think that intuition is just wrong and it gets amplified into very bad advice.”
This has made me wonder why founders don’t know better by default: what mechanisms might be at work here, and where else they might be restraining ambition. While not every founder is university-educated, the academic environment does play a role in shaping the mindset and ambition levels for those who are. From undergraduate to doctoral dissertations, filling a “gap in the literature”, no matter how incremental, is prized; supervisors encourage students to aim at “feasible” research above all, instead of letting their ambition roam while their work is still insulated from the pressure of the market or specific grants. This might be pronounced in some disciplines more than in others, affecting the impact we see from research in different fields and its commercialisation potential. It’s not hard to spot the same logic in education even earlier than university.
Reflecting on a year spent in the Bay Area, Alice Bentinck (Entrepreneur First co-founder) gives a mindset-rewiring steer which, I believe, applies to science as much as to entrepreneurship:
“The remedy isn’t an over-hyped slide that you don’t believe. The remedy is to ask yourself ‘what’s the most ambitious target we think we could achieve and then what would it take to get there?’. Pitch that.”
📦 Eamonn Ives, Research Director
In American politics, an ‘October Surprise’ refers to an unexpected event that occurs in the month prior to the presidential election, and that threatens to hurt the chances of one of the candidates. On 1 October, a strike called by the International Longshoremen’s Association looked like it could prove to be one for Kamala Harris – if it meant supply chains getting gummed up and inflation taking off again.
One of the demands made by the striking workers was a ban on automation at US ports. You might imagine this would be a straightforward hammerblow to productivity, but a fascinating post by Brian Potter suggests the impact could well be more nuanced. It also got me wondering, how productive are British ports?
Data from the World Bank’s Container Port Performance Index don’t make for pretty reading. Of the British ports it considers, only two – London and Southampton – feature in the top quartile, at 76th and 93rd out of 405 respectively. Every other port ranks deep into the triple digits – Felixstowe is 174th, Teesport 224th, Grangemouth 264th, Liverpool 293rd, Greenock 346th and, last of all, Bristol, coming in at a dismal 368th. These lowly figures mean a typical British port on the index would rank 230th – somewhat lower than the global average.
Economists have known for centuries how important international trade is for the economy, and the critical role exporting can play as a way of boosting productivity within individual firms. Previous research we’ve published has highlighted the pains entrepreneurs face when it comes to selling goods abroad. While it might not trigger an economic miracle, it wouldn’t hurt to nudge the performance of our ports up slightly.
💡 Philip Salter, Founder
My Big Idea for this week comes courtesy of our Adviser Francis Toye, founder of Unilink Software. He shared a Paul Graham's article from September on Founder Mode to get my thoughts.
In the September article, Graham shares the insights of Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb:
“As Airbnb grew, well-meaning people advised him that he had to run the company in a certain way for it to scale. Their advice could be optimistically summarized as ‘hire good people and give them room to do their jobs.’ He followed this advice and the results were disastrous.”
Chesky turned to Steve Jobs for inspiration. One thing Graham pulls out is that Jobs used to run an annual retreat for what he considered to be the 100 most important people at Apple. Critically, these weren’t the 100 people highest on the org chart: “It could make a big company feel like a startup,” suggests Graham.
As Graham acknowledges, clearly things need to change as a company scales. And there is a risk that a lot of bad management could be excused as “founder mode”. As Toye wrote to me:
"Extreme Founder Mode has obvious disadvantages: lack of delegation, micromanagement, high staff turnover, reliance on one individual etc., but on the other hand many corporate managers, however well intentioned and experienced, do not have the background to take a founder-led company into a successful growing business."
We still don’t fully understand what defines a great founder or when – and if – a company should transition to being run like a large organisation. Given the rising power of founder-led companies, getting this right (or wrong) could have huge implications for the rate of global innovation and the quality of all our lives.
On Wednesday, Keir Starmer will have his first meeting as Prime Minister with Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission. Top of the President’s agenda is negotiating a youth mobility scheme between the UK and EU. It’s top, not necessarily because it’s the most important thing, but because it’s an obvious win-win and a test to prod Starmer on his commitment to building a closer relationship.
Immigration has been top of my own mind over the last few weeks too. I spoke on the topic at both the Labour and Conservatives Party Conferences.
As well as my familiar schtick about immigrants being behind 39% of the UK’s fastest-growing businesses and our suite of policy recommendations, I argued that while immigration and upskilling the domestic workforce are two sides of the same coin, they require very different policy levers to get right.
On skills, while the Government is more or less on the correct track in announcing an expert-led review of curriculum and assessment and it’s commitment to replace the apprenticeship levy with a more flexible Growth and Skills Levy (with the caveat that there will be a higher potential for deadweight costs), its reliance on trying to plug skills gaps from the centre through the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) and Skills England is destined to fail.
The data simply isn’t there to make accurate decisions, nor are any of the functions of the state anywhere near quick enough to respond. This is Hayek’s local knowledge problem writ large, and it’s why free movement – even if limited to the young – beats central planning.
It was Margaret Thatcher who famously grabbed her copy of Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty from her handbag, slammed it down on the table and declared, “This is what we believe.” Those on the other side of politics can learn a thing or two from the Nobel Prize winner without subscribing to everything he believed. After all, Hayek literally wrote a paper called Why I Am Not a Conservative.
It was only four years ago that Keir Starmer said: “We welcome migrants, we don’t scapegoat them. Low wages, poor housing, poor public services, are not the fault of people who come here: they’re political failure. So we have to make the case for the benefits of migration; for the benefits of free movement.”
While times change, economic truths don’t.
SHAPE of Things
Over on our Substack, Anastasia has written up a fascinating interview with ARC Accelerator Co-Founder and Director Chris Fellingham on the commercialisation potential of social sciences, arts and humanities – or what The British Academy calls SHAPE (Social sciences, Humanities and Arts for People and the Economy).
ARC was founded in 2020 and now supports over 45 universities in an ICURe-like commercialisation programme specifically for researchers in social science, arts and humanities. There are lots of great examples cited, but as someone who studied history I’ll point you towards HistoryCity, which was founded by historians from the University of Exeter. They offer immersive trails in European cities and have partnered with organisations like the National Trust and museums to bring the past very much into the present.
For those interested, I would recommend reading the article in full, or at least skimming Anastasia’s X thread. As she says: “Social scientists have deep insights and answers to many pressing issues. If that can’t be translated into solutions, something must be broken or underbuilt.”
Also, in case you missed it, we put out another issue of our weekly Three Big Ideas roundup – on the demise of coal, priorities for growth, and letting a thousand Beatles bloom.
Join Us
As you’ll see, we have a lot coming up. While a fair amount of it is open to anyone – e.g. if you’re an angel investor in Scotland you’ll be accepted onto next week’s Edinburgh roundtable, others will be filled by those who go above and beyond in their support for us.
The more support we get, the more we are able to help entrepreneurs in the UK – including more events that are open for everyone. Now is the time to get on board. Sign up here or book a call with me to find out more.
For our latest interview, Anastasia Bektimirova sat down with Chris Fellingham, Co-Founder of ARC Accelerator, to chat about the commercialisation potential of research by academics in social sciences, arts and humanities.
They discussed:
How ARC Accelerator came about and what gaps in research commercialisation landscape it fills
Challenges of telling the impact story of SHAPE-based ventures
The differences between STEM and SHAPE commercialisation
SHAPE-based company archetypes, business models, and success stories
Commercialisation potential of pure versus computational social science and digital humanities
What it would take for SHAPE ventures to become VC-backable, and what high-risk high-reward work looks like in this space
How we can get more SHAPE commercialisation, and with greater impact
🪨 Eamonn Ives, Research Director
The year is 1882 – Queen Victoria marks her 45th year as reigning monarch, William Gladstone is enjoying his second of four terms in Downing Street, and, at 57 Holborn Viaduct in London, the world’s first coal-fired power station is sputtering into life. One hundred forty-two years – and 4.6 billion tonnes of coal – later, no more electricity will ever be generated from the dirty fossil fuel in Britain again. At 3pm on Monday 30th September, the last remaining coal-fired power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, was desynced from the grid.
Different reasons explain the demise of coal in Britain. There was legislative pressure, which placed limits on how polluting power stations could be – limits which coal struggled to comply with. Meanwhile, the rise of renewables ensured there were alternative ways to generate the electricity consumers demanded. But perhaps the killer reason was price. From 2013, a carbon price has been applied to the power sector, which levies a tax per tonne of carbon dioxide generated. Coal-fired power stations became increasingly uneconomical – going from producing 40% of Britain’s electricity in 2012 to just 10% in 2016.
Source: Our World in Data
Economists have long advocated the use of price signals as a way to efficiently and effectively achieve policy objectives. Britain’s rapid transition away from coal seems to vindicate them pretty comprehensively. As we look towards cracking other stubborn issues – from congested roads to decarbonising agriculture – the current government should be minded to learn the lessons of the past, recognise the power of prices to incentivise desired outcomes.
📊 David Lawrence, Co-Director, UK Day One
Keir Starmer says his new government’s ‘number one’ priority is growth. We at UK Day One wanted to take him at his word, so we asked 44 pro-growth economists, think tankers and experts to share their views on what Labour’s priorities should be.
Far at the top of the list was planning reform. However, respondents largely insisted that the growth impact will depend on building housing and infrastructure in or near existing areas of high productivity, particularly London and the Southeast.
Following this was investment in nuclear energy, to bring down energy costs. These are viewed by some as the main driver of Europe’s economic ills vis à vis the US, and bolstering electricity supply is particularly important given rising demand for electricity arising from heat pumps, electric vehicles and AI data centres. Nuclear is also favoured due to its supply of continuous baseload power, which is essential for industry. Interestingly, respondents were more divided about whether the UK should increase investment in non-nuclear renewable energy – and the UK’s ‘green tech potential’ was generally deemed ‘highly overrated’, despite the current government’s prioritisation of green jobs.
In what will surprise some, another idea that was viewed as ‘overrated’ was access to capital for startups. Where capital is in short supply, as one respondent put it, is more because of “underlying issues making it difficult to create profitable opportunities here with which to generate returns.” Fixing these could prove to be more effective than tinkering with pensions reforms.
With the Budget just three weeks away, Rachel Reeves’ first meaningful opportunity to shape Britain’s economy is fast approaching. Our survey findings – which you can read in full here – provide a plan for her to build on.
💫 Philip Salter, Founder
“[W]e should be taking more chances on quite young people, giving them more authority,” Tyler Cowen declares on the excellent Institute for Progress’ Metascience 101 podcast, the latest episode of which looks at how to better fund scientific innovation.
Tyler adds, “when you think of young people running things – well, who ran the Beatles? There was George Martin and Brian Epstein, but the Beatles ran the Beatles. Paul McCartney had to figure out the recording studio. We don’t call that science, but that was an extremely difficult scientific project that had never been done before. And this guy, who hadn’t gone to college, at age 23 starts figuring it out and becomes a master.”
It’s not just music. The next generation can bring a fresh approach to tackling the world’s most pressing problems, something we’ve consistently argued for at The Entrepreneurs Network. And, as with musicians, though not everyone will become great, a great entrepreneur can come from anywhere (to misquote Anton Ego in Ratatouille). That’s why we’re supportive of organisations like the Junior Achievement, VIVITA, Young Enterprise and the Prince’s Trust who aim to imbue young people with the skills to lead.
Three Big Ideas is our weekly roundup of ideas (and our takes on them) in entrepreneurship, innovation, science and technology, handpicked by the team.
In this week, Eamonn Ives explains how coal-fired power was phased out in Britain, Philip Salter writes about the importance of empowering youth entrepreneurship, and guest contributor David Lawrence discusses the results of a survey on priorities for economic growth run by UK Day One.
This week I’m opening with a request. If you’re an angel investor who backs female founders, or you’re actively interested in becoming an angel investor, or a female entrepreneur backed by angels, we have a unique opportunity for you to feed into the Government’s Invest in Women Taskforce, co-chaired by multi-exit entrepreneur Debbie Wosskow and Barclays’ Business CEO Hannah Bernard, and backed by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Over the next few weeks, we’re hosting roundtables with Barclays in Newcastle, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Belfast and London. This really is a chance to have your say on policy, get quoted in the report or feature as a case study (or input off-the-record if you prefer), as well as meet like-minded people in your area.
We want to share this opportunity far and wide so we get the very best and diverse insights. Therefore, before you read any further, sign up for an event or forward this email to anyone in your network who might be interested – the more the merrier. Additionally, you can reshare my LinkedIn post, our tweet, or get it out to the great and good through your channels.
We take this topic very seriously. We were the first organisation in Britain to reveal the equity funding gap; we helped launch the Rose Review; and alongside Barclays have been campaigning for policies to support female entrepreneurship through the Female Founders Forum for over a decade.
We’re also scoping out doing something in Wales (either in person or virtually), so if you’re interested in that or have any questions about these events, drop us an email.
Pepper Questions
Another week, another three big ideas landed on our Substack. While Eamonn wrote about the lessons of US overregulation of Sichuan Pepper and Anastasia opined on the UN’s AI governance efforts, I pointed people towards what might well be this year’s most influential essay on British politics: Foundations.
It’s worth amplifying the alarm raised in the essay that by making it so hard to build, Britain is sabotaging its leadership in the technologies of the new industrial revolution (sorry, despite claims to the contrary, this will be the second not fourth).
But it’s not just AI and biotech. As Foundations states: “Britain’s strongest industries are creative and intangible, and yet we blocked a £750 million film studio by a dual carriageway, right by the UK’s strongest film cluster. Britain is the most advanced country, per capita, in artificial intelligence, but we blocked a £2.5 billion ‘super hub’ data centre site by the M25. Top talent from around the world flocks to work in biotech in Cambridge, yet we have starved the sector of lab space – under one percent of Cambridge lab space is vacant. Prime city centre office space and labs there are renting for even more than residential property.”
RIO ROI
Adviser to the network Ben Greenstone has co-written an excellent report on how regulation is suffocating startups. Igniting Innovation makes for brutal reading. As Ben’s thread on X explains, the Food Standards Agency has approved just 14% of requests since 2021, the Financial Conduct Authority hit just two-thirds of its targets, while the Civil Aviation Authority has yet to authorise out-of-sight drone flights, even though the US and Japan did so two years ago.
There is a great deal of ruin in our regulatory state: Space Forge, the British aerospace manufacturing company headquartered in Cardiff, had to consult eleven different regulators to launch, while an AI legal startup must navigate at least six different regulators to get approval.
The new Regulatory Innovation Office (RIO) might help with some of the regulatory burden. We’re certainly keeping an eye on it. The report recommends it should be given powers to compel regulators to coordinate on emerging technologies, which would certainly be a step in the right direction. I’d be minded to go a step further, and follow John Fingleton’s suggestion to create an N+1 regulator that could give licences to disruptive entrants across the entire economy.
Well Spent
Labour done. Just the Conservative Party conference to go. If you’re there on Monday, I’ll be on a panel with Karim Fatehi MBE (London Chamber of Commerce and Industry), Shuyeb Muquit (Fragomen), Jonathan Thomas (Social Market Foundation) and Heather Rolfe (British Future). We’ll be chatting about the UK’s current immigration system. I’ll be drawing on much of our recent work, including Eamonn’s latest article on the case for increasing youth mobility.
