Corporate chief executives have spent the past few years warning that the capital’s entrepreneurial spirit has packed its bags, driven out by rising taxes, tighter regulation and falling confidence. Yet beneath the gloomy rhetoric, a different picture is emerging: a growing cohort of start-ups that are continuing to scale rapidly, attract global investors and enhance London’s reputation as Europe’s leading tech hub.
London now hosts 70 of the UK’s 92 private companies which have been valued at more than $1 billion (about £750 million). This is the coveted “unicorn” status: the tech world’s benchmark for arrival. Despite tougher funding conditions and a wider slowdown in venture capital investment over the past few years, three UK companies have already joined the unicorn cohort this year.
