The UK has officially been announced as the best place across Europe to grow a business, despite the woes of Brexit and GDPR on the horizon.
A report from Cisco and Mind the Bridge revealed that scale-ups across the UK have so far raised over $21.6bn in funding, making up 35% of the total capital available across Europe.
UK scale-ups have raised four times more capital via IPO than their German equivalents and three times the amount of this scale-ups in France, Spain and Italy put together could raise. Thus demonstrating the status the UK has.
In addition to being the best location for scale-ups, the report also found that this adoption of scale-up businesses is moving up the country with the North becoming an emerging hub for scaling businesses.
The report revealed 69% of scale-ups are concentrated across the city of London, but the Northern powerhouse is a rising hub for scaling businesses as 8% are originating from this region.
Cisco has it has already demonstrated its commitment to the North of the UK, in Manchester, after opening its MI-IDEA innovation centre with the University of Manchester’s Science department.
MI-IDEA aims to bring together tech start-ups and scale-ups, with the best brains and expertise in the industry to boost small businesses capabilities and become big businesses in the long run.
Nick Chrissos, Head of Innovation, Cisco UK & Ireland, said: “We’re a proud supporter of UK innovation. Today, we celebrate the fourth anniversary of our national innovation network and IDEALondon innovation centre; this follows the launch of Mi-IDEA in Manchester earlier this year to further support innovation in the North.”
Projects from the likes of large technology companies such as Cisco are boosting businesses in the North of the country, by helping scale up businesses make their way in the world.
“We believe that the creation of these networks in the industry, in regions and across the UK will be pivotal to helping develop our ability to innovate, together,” said Chrissos.
Furthermore, the report also found that FinTech is the dominant industrial specialisation across the UK scale up the ecosystem, another emerging market that is becoming increasingly popular and needed around the world shines from the streets of the UK.
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Despite the political uncertainty within the UK, it is still brandished the best place for scale-ups across Europe and a dominant player in the scene.
“The report confirms that without a doubt, the UK is the epicentre of scale-up Europe. It’s impressive too, to see that the tech UK economy continues to grow at double digits in terms of both capital and scale up volume,” said Alberto Onetti, Chairman at Mind the Bridge, and spokesperson for Start-up Europe Partnership (SEP).
Now, if the UK is to continue growing and remain competitive it needs the likes of the government, industry bodies and businesses to work collaboratively to develop environments, such as the MI-IDEA hub, where creativity can flourish and companies can grow to become European and world leaders in the future.
