Founders, Step Up

Entrepreneur

2 days ago

This Government has shown it is taking UK tech seriously, now founders need to step up too
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For those that remember the heady days of David Cameron, George Osborne and the then Mayor of London Boris Johnson finding every opportunity to come to Old Street roundabout to celebrate the area's emerging startups, the first nine months of the new Labour administration gave the impression of a Government that was largely indifferent to tech.
However, the last six weeks have changed that. Starting with some major AI commitments announced alongside Jenson Huang from NVIDIA at London Tech Week (a much more high profile tech leader than former PMs were able to bring to the UK's flagship tech event), followed by the Spending Review and the Modern Industrial Strategy, the Government has set out a clear roadmap for founders about where its priorities for policy and investment will lie. As a VC very active in the UK early-stage ecosystem, of course we don't look to Government for guidance on investment opportunities, or expect Government to have the power to dictate innovation. But the Government does play an important role in the ecosystem.
Firstly, it has a loud voice. And anything the Government can do to showcase success, signal the scale of the opportunity for UK companies and demonstrate a real commitment to back British tech innovation sends a strong message to international investors and customers looking to work with new start-ups. But more importantly, the Government can create material commercial opportunities by unlocking the UK's massive public sectors for digital innovation. And this matters for start-ups.
And that is what was most exciting about these policy announcements in recent weeks. They give a very clear sense of where Government will be focusing its funding, procurement and regulation. And these are big industries with huge potential for digital disruption that we're talking about. From the NHS to national defence, from education to green industries - there are billion-dollar opportunities for start-ups who know how to look for them. What caught my attention wasn't just the scale of investment, but how these announcements add up to something bigger - a government that finally understands tech isn't just about apps and algorithms, but about rebuilding Britain's industrial base:
With a new £27.8bn National Wealth Fund prioritising clean energy, digital, manufacturing, the UK is now a major co-investor in climate infrastructure
The UK now sees defencetech and dual-use innovation as core to its industrial future, not just its national safety, with a new £2bn+ annual defence R&D budget
Dedicating £1bn+ for cross-government digital and AI transformation will unlock a new era of govtech innovation. The most important is the Government's push for Digital ID. This will have major repercussions for fintechs and the way individuals interact with public services
The UK wants to lead in making the things that matter, from biomanufacturing to smart robotics to deeptech scale-up. With £2.5bn for quantum, £1bn for semiconductors and £1bn+ for compute, AI, and synthetic biology this is about scaling up national capabilities
The NHS will undergo one of the biggest programmes of digital transformation the world has ever seen. £10bn committed to NHS tech and digital transformation will put tech at the heart of our NHS.
The regions matter. The Government will be investing in clusters up and down the country, which is good news for founders based outside of the capital.
Significant expansion of the British Business Bank (to £25.6bn) makes it one of the most important state-backed investors in Europe.
Now, I know what you're thinking. Government promises are cheap, and Whitehall's track record on tech delivery is mixed at best. Fair enough. But here's what's different this time: these aren't moonshot commitments decades away. This is funding that's being deployed now, with departments that have clear mandates and Ministers who understand the urgency. So what does this actually mean for founders building companies right now in the UK?
These policy announcements signal the Government's attention. These are the sectors which Ministers, policymakers and Treasury officials will be prioritising in the coming years. If you're a pre-seed founder, building for alignment with UK capability priorities is a very sensible idea. These are the sectors where decisions will be made faster, and budget will be more available.
Here's the practical bit: start with your local Catapult centre - they're your fastest route into government procurement conversations. Then work backwards through Innovate UK and UKRI. Don't pitch your product; pitch the problem you solve. If you're building AI for fraud detection, lead with "we can save the public sector £2.6bn annually" not "we've built a great ML model."
Founders become adept very quickly at speaking the language of their core customers. Founders learn to speak 'corporate' early on if they are selling to enterprises and global organisations. The same should be true for founders speaking to Government. Learn their language and frame things in terms of outcomes, resilience and productivity. The UK is hungry for globally ambitious founders building 'infrastructure layers' in every sector. If founders can demonstrate they are building national capabilities to increase UK digital sovereignty they will be welcomed with open arms by Government. Rightly so, international events have overshadowed many of the policy announcements. But to my mind they are the most significant combination of Government policies for UK founders in many years.
This won't last forever. Political priorities shift, budgets get cut, Ministers move on. But right now, for the first time in years, government and private markets are aligned on what Britain needs to build. The founders who move fast on this will have a structural advantage that lasts decades. The question isn't whether you can build a billion-dollar company in this environment. It's whether you can afford not to try.