UK Fintech founders remain positive
A new survey by the Digital Finance Forum has found that only one in three UK fintech founders are optimistic about the country’s ability to remain a world leader in Fintech in the next five years.
The ability of Fintechs to attract and hire talented people is a key challenge identified by thestudy that the government is asked to address urgently. However, the Fintech founders surveyed also revealed that the access to talent issue is not restricted to finding more talented engineers and product professionals. Fintech companies also struggle to attract suitably experienced financial services professionals into their businesses. There are a number of suggestions in the study that may assist with this challenge – such as increasing the current EMI thresholds for ‘scale-up’ Fintech businesses to incentivise the best people to join their companies as they grow.
The findings come from a study published by the Digital Finance Forum (DFF), which is a network of the UK’s leading Fintech founders that aims to create real conversations between policymakers, regulators, founders and entrepreneurs. Survey respondents included founders from leading fintechs including Crowdcube, iWoca, LendInvest, Liberis and Onfido.
UK start-ups favoured by US, Asian Investors
The UK tech sector has attracted more foreign investment in the first seven months of 2019 than it did during the whole of last year and has overtaken the US for foreign investment, per capita.
Of the top three global tech hubs, the UK attracts nearly as much non-domestic capital as the much bigger China. The UK is ahead of the USA on a per capital basis.The sector is attracting an average of $1bn a month from both foreign and domestic investors – one and a half times the amount raised during the same period last year – making the UK one of the most attractive and dynamic markets in Europe.
Research prepared for the Digital Economy Council by Tech Nation and Dealroom.co shows that between January and July this year, UK-based tech firms received a staggering $6.7 billion in funding – with $3.7 billion, or 55%, coming from American and Asian investors thanks to billion-dollar tech companies such as energy supplier OVO Energy and food delivery startup Deliveroo.