UK Investment

2019 Stats

• Britain’s tech sector attracted more venture capital investment and tech IPOs than any other European hub in 2018, with London businesses receiving £1.8 billion (72 per cent) of the total £2.49 billion raised by British tech firms. (London & Partners, Jan 2018)

• London-based tech businesses are benefitting from access to almost double the amount of growth capital (£1.8bn) than other European cities such as Paris (£797m), Berlin (£936m) and Stockholm (£224m). (London & Partners, Jan 2018)

• Creative Europe awarded €300,000 to UK games projects in 2018. Two UK games studios received the maximum amount of €150,000 available for this kind of prototype funding. (Creative Europe, May 2019)
  • In total, 30 projects across Europe received €3.7m in Creative Europe funding in 2018.

• Nearly £1bn (£910.03m) was invested in UK games "tech scale-up" businesses between 2015 and 2018. (TechNation, May 2019)

2017 Stats

• The UK’s technology sector drew more investment than that of any other European country in 2016, with more than £6.7 billion ($9.5bn) was invested into UK tech firms in 2016 in private equity and venture capital deals. (London & Partners Jan 2017)

• The UK remains attractive to investors despite the vote to leave the EU, with UK tech firms receiving more venture capital investment than any European country post-referendum. (London & Partners Jan 2017)

• Major US tech firms have also recently expanded operations in the UK since the EU referendum: Google announced a £1bn investment plan for a new headquarters in King’s Cross, Facebook announced an additional 500 jobs for London and Apple plans a new headquarters in Battersea. Snap Inc, the company behind messaging app Snapchat, also announced it has established its international Headquarters in London. (London & Partners Jan 2017)

2016 Stats

• In the immediate post-Brexit period, the UK saw $509m of investment by US VCs, far exceeding that of other European nations (2nd was Germany at $94.2m). London saw $426.7m of that investment, again far exceeding other European cities (2nd was Dublin at $64m). (London & Partners Sept 2016)

• London is the top European city for US venture capital investment, with $4.36bn invested in the last 5 years. Berlin was second at $3.76bn. (London & Partners, Sept 2016)

• London is Europe’s leading city for technology and financial services, according a Mayor of London-driven survey of US tech executives conducted by London & Partners. London came out top in nearly all categories, including leading financial hub, leading tech hub, most likely place to set up European operations and the easiest city in which to do business. (London & Partners, Sept 2016)

• In the period 2011Q1-2016Q3, the UK Gaming sector saw 44 capital investments, second only to Finland in the same period. By comparison, the UK Music sector saw 45 capital investments in the same period. ([1] LinkedIn/ Atomico / Slush, Nov 2016)