London, fintech and money. They’re three amigos aren’t they?
A winning combo of location, sector and investment, affording the best exposure to startup capital and markets.
Right?
Not quite. Last year, more was invested in UK tech and fintech outside of London than anywhere else in Europe. And thousands of tech firms are finding competitive funding and startup costs outside the UK capital. But how much is being invested elsewhere?
£4.4 billion outside the Big Smoke to be precise
One fast-growing fintech that secured a valuable form of funding outwith London is Encompass Corporation, a company which is part of the £4.4 billion boom. It offers Know Your Customer (KYC) automation software for the banking, finance, legal and accountancy sectors. Comittted to RegTech, the firm is running a seminar on the new innovation, and will be speaking at the Business Information Industry Associate (BIIA) annual conference panel on RegTech this year.
Roger Carson, its co-founder, explains why other UK regions are a magnet for tech startups.
He enthuses: “The wealth of UK tech talent, generous incentives and tax breaks by the UK government, plus generous funding schemes from many UK cities have contributed to tech hubs emerging in Cambridge, Oxford, Scotland, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Cardiff and elsewhere.”
This, he believes, has contributed to making the UK an attractive proposition for tech and fintech startups and investors alike, with many delivering huge growth of M&A activity in the UK’s tech sector over the past few years. And this is now made even more possible thanks to the new specialist Royal Bank of Scotland Entrepreneurial Spark fintech hub in Edinburgh.
Likewise, the UK can prove the ideal launch pad for breaking into the North American market, the holy grail for any tech entrepreneur, he reasons.
But it’s…