The UK is one of the world's most lucrative and largest hotbeds for startups, boasting a developed ecosystem and a large amount of capital available. UK tech startups received huge funding, even during the inflation spike in 2023, with early-stage funding reaching a total of $39.3 Billion for the year. UK startups are also nurtured through their early stages with access to more than 700 startup accelerators and incubators, providing critical advice and startup support.
Whilst a large portion of the startup market in the country is centred in London, there are numerous thriving ecosystems in other cities as well. Cities such as Bristol and Birmingham have raised billions respectively in startup funding in the previous decade. Manchester, in particular, has recently earned the reputation of a rising tech hub and the fastest growing digital city in Europe. As a result, more skilled workers are moving there from big cities like London.
The UK Government is also heavily involved in the country's startup ecosystem. Startups can access a range of government-backed startup loans, Research and Development tax credits, and deductions on property-related taxes for businesses with smaller premises.
1. Beckley Psytech
Year Founded: 2018
HQ: Beckley, UK
Size: 11-50
Founders: Lady Amanda Feilding, Cosmo Feilding Mellen
Beckley Psytech is a UK startup that was founded in 2018 and is currently based in the town of Beckley in Oxfordshire. It operates in the pharmaceutical and neuroscience industries, attempting to provide better healthcare outcomes to patients. It uses psychedelic compounds in small doses to provide treatment to patients suffering from neurological conditions.
Beckley was born out of the Beckley Foundation, which has more than 20-years of experience within the field. Some of the conditions they treat include treatment resistant depression, intense headache attacks, and other debilitating conditions.
Beckley Psytech has successfully raised millions of dollars in funding, with their most recent round generating over $80 Million in 2021. This funding has gone a long way in allowing the team to develop new practices and research the potential of digital tools in improving healthcare.
2. Hyperexponential
Year Founded: 2017
HQ: London, UK
Size: 1-10
Founders: Amrit Santhirasenan
Hyperexponential is a London-based startup, founded in 2017. It works in the InsurTech market and helps businesses by using Pricing-Decision-Intelligence software. This allows insurers to make more effective decisions regarding pricing and underwriting of particular risks. Their actions have helped insurers to write $37 Billion in GWP per annum.
Hyperexponential has been incredibly successful in raising startup funding. In its most recent funding round, held in January 2024, Hyperexponential raised a total of $73 Million in Series B funding. To date, they've raised a total of $91 Million, with the support of 12-investors.
3. Conigital
Year Founded: 2015
HQ: Birmingham, UK
Size: 51-100
Founders: Don-Paul Dhaliwal
Conigital is a Birmingham-based startup, founded in 2015. It operates in the tech industry, creating AI-based driving technology for commercial ports, airports and stockyards to help them drive higher levels of efficiency and improve worker safety. Conigital's technology provides an autonomous method of loading and carrying heavy goods around these areas.
Conigital is one of the most successful UK startups in terms of funding. Their most recent Series A+ funding round brought in more than £500 Million to pursue the latest developments and integrations for their automation technology. But that's not enough. Conigital is still seeking additional funding to bring their product into more establishments across the world.
4. MLabs
Year Founded: 2018
HQ: Birmingham, UK
Size: 101-250
Founders: Mark Florisson, Ben Hart, Oskar Greda, Karthikayan Lakshmanan
MLabs is a UK startup that was founded in 2018 and is currently based in the city of Birmingham. It operates in the Blockchain, Rust, Haskell and AI markets. Their team provides bespoke consultancy solutions for businesses that are aiming to complete projects based on the above assets. Most of the value they generate is based on educating business owners about the nature of these technologies and helping them implement them effectively in a manner that isn't overly ambitious, or likely to fail.
MLabs also provides consults on other elements of the design process, such as mapping out the landscape of your tech solution, removing bugs and assisting with the testing of new technologies and developing blockchain solutions based on the high-performance Solana Blockchain.
Despite their success and rapid rate of growth, MLabs hasn't raised any startup funding.
5. Sano Genetics
Year Founded: 2017
HQ: Cambridge, UK
Size: 11-50
Founders: Patrick Short, William Jones, Charlotte Guzzo
Sano Genetics is a UK startup, founded in 2017. It is currently headquartered in the world-famous city of Cambridge. Sano Genetics has developed a 360 degree, multi-use platform that makes it easier for geneticists to find new treatments for patients and improve care outcomes. For example, the platform comes with functionalities allowing medical professionals to easily find new patients, get digital consent and pre-screen for practices, retrieve and store electronic medical records, patient engagement, DNA testing and much more.
Sano Genetics aims to make it as easy as possible to access and use their platform, which is why rather than using a set pricing matrix, the company has decided to instead model itself using custom pricing plans based on the needs of each business using it. This allows the platform to be completely aligned with the goals of the practitioner and prevents them from spending money they don't need to.
Sano's most recent funding round took place in January 2024, when the team managed to raise a total of $11.4 Million. In total, Sano has raised a figure of $22 Million in startup funding so far.
6. Qredo
Year Founded: 2018
HQ: London, UK
Size: 101-250
Founders: Anthony Foy, Brian Spector
Qredo is a London-based UK startup that was founded in 2018. It operates in the FinTech and crypto markets. Qredo's main aim is to provide a solution for the secure storage of digital assets. As such, the company has solutions for secure cryptocurrency vaults and wallets, whilst also providing frameworks for governance and insurance, which are key aspects of crypto investments. You can also deploy and build key infrastructure such as APIs for Web3, exchanges and more. They provide a full solution for professionals such as asset managers, banks, Web3 developers, crypto exchanges and more.
Qredo has been incredibly successful in raising startup funding, with a total of raised $80 Million raised in 2022, at a valuation of over $460 Million.
7. Bloom
Year Founded: 2021
HQ: Manchester, UK
Size: 51-100
Founders: Alex Castell-Howard, Sam Helire-Howell
Bloom Recruitment is another Machester-based UK startup that was founded in 2021. It provides recruitment services, aiming to connect top talent with a range of early-stage startups, scale ups and global tech giants. Its recruitment method is not just based on matching skills, but also matching values between applicants and companies. Its aim is to create the UK's number one marketplace for tech-based jobs. Bloom has worked with a range of top tier clients such as Google, Monzo Bank and Synthensia.
Despite the tech connections and abilities of the founders, there is currently no publicly available information about their funding. However, as more UK businesses try to recruit top tech talent, Bloom's popularity is about to increase in the coming years.
8. Daytrip
Year Founded: 2015
HQ: London, UK
Size: 11-50
Founders: Jan Prokop, Jiri Svacek, Marketa Blahova, Tomas Turek, Valeriia Pshenychna
DayTrip is a London-based, UK startup, founded in 2015. They operate in the travel industry, aiming to make it easier for people to travel from place-to-place and door-to-door without the need of their own personal vehicle. Customers are paired with vetted, English-speaking drivers when travelling to other cities and countries. You can also ask the driver to take the scenic routes so that you can enjoy potential sightseeing opportunities throughout your journey. This also allows you to get a unique insight into the local culture.
Despite the modest-sounding business model for the startup, it has been very successful in raising funding. Their most recent funding round took place in January 2024. The Series B round allowed Daytrip to raise a total of $10 Million in funding to improve their offerings and increase their operations. They have helped more than 850,000 customers and more than 7000 drivers since being founded.
9. Sylvera
Year Founded: 2020
HQ: London, UK
Size: 101-250
Founders: Allister Furey
Sylvera is a UK startup that was founded in 2020 and is currently based in the capital city of London. It operates in the GreenTech market and has created a carbon data platform that helps both businesses and governments to easily navigate the carbon market. IT provides Carbon Credit Ratings, analysis on Carbon Credits, information on upcoming risks in various jurisdictions, and pre-issuance assessments. Sylvera is currently working with some of the UK's biggest companies, such as Chevron, SalesForce, Shell and more.
Sylvera, like many other climate-related startups, has received a large amount of funding and publicity. Most recently, it took part in a Series B round in July 2023, which allowed it to raise $57 Million in funding, led by Balderton Capital. As it continues to grow and provide additional services to its customers, it is very likely that it will receive further funding to develop new aspects of the business.
10. SurrealDB
Year Founded: 2021
HQ: London, UK
Size: 11-50
Founders: Tobie Morgan Hitchock, Jaime Morgan Hitchcock
Surreal DB is one of the most exciting startups in the UK. It helps make the process of developing and building multi-model databases much easier and quicker. It also allows you to scale your applications at a much faster rate than would be typically possible. Surreal DB is trusted by some of the world's biggest companies, such as SalesForce, IBM, Figment and more.
The skill and support that SurrealDB provides to its clients have allowed it to successfully complete its first round of startup funding. During this January 2023 round, the team managed to raise a total of $6 Million to further the development of their platform and to help them reach new clients.
11. Otta
Year Founded: 2019
HQ: London, UK
Size: 51-100
Founders: Sam Franklin, Theo Margolius, Xav Kearney
Otta is a London-based, UK startup that was founded in 2019. It is a startup-specific recruitment company that helps candidates find their dream job. By specifying exactly what you want from a role, Otta will only recommend jobs that are relevant to you, cutting out the long-winded work in finding and applying for jobs. The more you interact with the software, its machine larning system will provide you with recommendations that become even more specific and suited to your needs.
Otta's last funding round took place in January 2022, when it raised a total of $20 Million to improve the platform. As it continues to grow and gain new relationships with tech companies for recruitment, it may pursue further funding in the future to facilitate their growth plans. Otta is rapidly positioning itself as one of the UK's best recruitment companies.
12. Detected
Year Founded: 2020
HQ: London, UK
Size: 11-50
Founders: Liam Chennells
Detected is a UK startup that was founded in 2020 and is currently based in London. It has developed one of the world-leading KYB platforms. This platform allows you to design and build you own business onboarding processes and gateways for clients. It also lets you embed better fraud prevention methods into your processes. As a Detected client, you get the complete business details of your customers, financial data to identify risk profiles, complete KYC checks on customers, and much more.
Despite being a relatively new startup, Detected has already seen great success in terms of startup funding, raising a total of $2.5 Million in January 2022. This funding will go towards the development of their platform, providing additional functionality and growing their client base of payment businesses. It is an exciting time to be a member of the Detected team.
13. Xampla
Year Founded: 2018
HQ: Cambridge, UK
Size: 1-10
Founders: Marc Rodriguez Garcia
Xampla is a UK startup, founded in 2018 and based in Cambridge. It is on a mission to change the way humans generate plastic waste. Zampla has developed biodegradable alternatives to non-recyclable, polluting plastics that are generally used in both manufacturing processes and equipment. Their aim is threefold - to reduce the amount of plastic being produced, to cut greenhouse emissions and plastic pollution, and to use any waste products during production as animal feed.
Xampla received $7 Million in backing during its most recent funding round in February 2024. This funding will allow them to develop more plastic alternatives and will also allow them to target more manufacturers who they can help with reducing their plastic dependency. Overall, Xampla is trying to make a greener, healthier planet.
14. ZILO
Year Founded: 2020
HQ: London, UK
Size: 51-100
Founders: Phillip Goffin, Santosh Reyes
ZILO is a London-based software startup that launched in 2020. It has created an 'all-in-one' transfer agency software to support global funds businesses. The platform removes the hassle of legacy record keeping by making sure all records are digital, whilst also providing all of the key functionalities needed to support a funds business. It boasts a variety of features, such as registry, reconciliation, settlement, dealing, tax requirements, analytics and reporting. These features simplify operations and allow you to focus on tasks that add more value to your business.
ZILO has attracted several investors with its platform. The most recent funding round, held in January 2024, brought in £25 Million in funds to support their growth and further development of their software.
15. Vertice
Year Founded: 2021
HQ: London, UK
Size: 101-250
Founders: Roy Tuvey, Eldar Tuvey
Vertice is another UK startup that is based out of London. It was founded in 2021 with the goal to help finance leaders in organisations to gain visibility into their SaaS spending and granularity. This also allows finance leaders to effectively plan their future expenses for the business. Typically, businesses make their money back from the platform within 90-days, with an average savings of between 20%-30% and an estimated ROI of 700% over the course of using the platform. The Vertice platform works with most SaaS platforms, including things like Hubspot, Microsoft programs, Zoom and more.
Vertice has managed to successfully raise a large amount of startup funding, with a recent January 2024 Series B round helping it to raise $25 Million. As it continues to expand and try to reach more customers, it is likely that Vertice will succeed in securing even more startup funding in the near future.
16. Qogita
Year Founded: 2021
HQ: London, UK
Size: 51-100
Founders: Danny Toledano, Yaniv Toledano
Qogita is a London-based, UK startup that was founded in 2021. Qogita provides an online e-commerce platform, aiming to connect retailers with a range of different wholesalers. Customers can find wholesale prices for a range of brands in beauty, grooming, fragrances and much more. This allows you to save a large amount of time and money when shopping for the typically expensive brands that you love to stock.
Qogita's immediate success and lucrative business model has already attracted the attention of a range of investors, including Dawn Capital and Accel. In its most recent Series B round in December 2023, Qogita netted a huge investment of 80 Million Euros. Currently there are more than 300,000 sellers and 10,000 buyers on the platform, but with this funding, that number is likely to explode in size.
17. Northcoders
Year Founded: 2015
HQ: Manchester, UK
Size: 11-50
Founders: Chris Hill
Northcoders is another Manchester-based, UK startup, founded in 2015. Northcoders was established to help bring coding and technical education to the north of the country. The aim is to create a future Britain that has the skilled technical workers it needs to propel the country on a path of innovation and economic growth. They offer 13-week coding boot camps to applicants to help them gain the skills and experience they need to get a coding role. Businesses can also use the platform to find new talent in the early stages of their career.
Northcoders has done incredibly well in terms of receiving funding and the British government has taken notice of their work. The government has been financing Northcoders for the past 4 years. In January 2024, Northcoders received £10 Million from the Department For Education, with the aim of using the funds to expand courses on software development and data engineering.
18. Cyferd
Year Founded: 2021
HQ: Leicester, UK
Size: 51-100
Founders: Ranjit Bahia
Cyferd is a UK startup, founded in 2021 and based in the city of Leicester. It creates AI-based solutions to help UK businesses with their DevOps and data management processes. With the help of Cyfred, you can create applications using only a few keywords. Data siloing is eliminated through the centralisation of all data in a unified data layer. This breaks down the barriers between various programs and teams. Overall, using Cyferd will save your company countless amounts of time and money in the development process.
Cyferd has done incredibly well with raising startup funding, recently completing a Series A round in January 2024. During this round and previous funding rounds, the total amount raised by Cyferd was undisclosed, but is likely to be a substantial amount in the seven-figures.
19. Robin AI
Year Founded: 2019
HQ: London, UK
Size: 101-250
Founders: Richard Robinson, Dr James Clough
Robin AI is another London-based, tech startup, founded in 2019. It works in the LawTech market and provides AI-powered contract review services. It claims to reduce the amount of time spent reviewing contracts by 85%, allowing in-house and external legal teams to cut down their administrative tasks and spend more time performing tasks that add additional value to their organisation. Robin AI is trusted by incredibly affluent companies such as Albacore Capital, BlueEarth Capital and more.
Due to its great offering and the growing interest in LawTech, Robin AI has managed to raise a large amount of startup funding. At the start of January 2024, it secured a Series B funding of $26 Million, taking the total amount raised to $43.6 Million.
20. Wondercraft
Year Founded: 2023
HQ: London, UK
Size: 1-10
Founders: Youssef Rizk, Dimitris Nikolau
Wondercraft is a young UK startup that was founded in 2023 and is currently headquartered in London. It aims to create the 'Canva' of audio by empowering every business to be able to create their own audio. The beta version of its service was launched in 2023 and is used by more than 30,000 businesses to create human-like synthetic voices. This can help you save countless amounts of time and money that would be otherwise spent on recording yourself or outsourcing the process to a voice artist. All you need to do is feed a script to Wondercraft and the platform will do most of the work for you.
Wondercraft has seen great success and exposure through Y Combinator and Diary of a CEO Founder, Steven Bartlett- a widely-known UK business personality. Wondercraft raised £2.4 Million in a round during January 2024, which was led by both Bartlett and Y Combinator to help improve their technology and facilitate growth.
21. Space Forge
Year Founded: 2018
HQ: Bristol, UK
Size: 11-50
Founders: Andrew Bacon, Joshua Western
Space Forge is a UK startup, founded in 2018 and based out of Bristol. It operates in the Robotics and Manufacturing industries. Space Forge has an ambitious goal to create the world's first reliable method of on-orbit manufacturing, through itson-orbit factories, Forgestar. The factories are satellites that make use of microgravity to aid in the production of semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. It has already conducted test launches and aims to have their first profitable Forgestar (after accounting for material payload to launch costs) by 2025.
Due to the huge potential of the industry, Space Forge has been very successful in receiving funding to further develop and test of the commercial viability of its technology. This includes funding from the UK Space Agency in November 2023, worth £7.9 Million and a partnership with Northrop Grumman, UK to explore the possibility of in-space manufacturing.
FAQs
What Are The Strongest Industries In The UK?
The UK has a strong service-based economy; and a lot of UK startups reflect that, as FinTech, InsurTech, LawTech and similar industries have shown incredible growth in recent years.
What Is The Average Investment In The Startup Industry In The UK
Total startup investment in the UK would be almost impossible to calculate. However, London startups alone average $889,000 in Seed Funding and $8.5 Million in Series A.
How Many Startups Are There In The UK?
In London alone, there are more than 18,000 tech startups, with many more spread out across the country.
