Britain is brimming with innovation. From Cambridge’s ARM to Oxford’s vaccine breakthroughs, we’ve proven time and again that ideas are not our problem. But too often, just as the engines ignite, the runway ends. We excel at take-off, but falter at altitude.
The recent €1.3bn investment round for Mistral AI – led by ASML a Dutch semiconductor giant – shows how European corporates are stepping up to back strategic tech. It’s not just about returns; it’s about sovereignty.
AI is fast becoming essential to economic and geopolitical resilience. If the UK wants to remain competitive, it must ensure its most promising tech companies can scale and succeed at home – with domestic capital behind them.
That’s where institutional capital comes in. Right now, UK pension funds currently allocate just 0.007% of their assets to venture capital. By comparison, in North America that figure ranges from 0.5% to 2%....