Venture capital investment into Britain’s technology companies has hit a record high with more than $2.2bn raised in the first 6 months of 2015, according to CB Insight and KPMG
The report ‘Venture Pulse’ is a global analysis of venture funding and demonstrates the huge growth in tech investment in the UK and across the world. You can download the report here.
The capital’s technology companies are leading the way in attracting VC investment by securing more than 80% of the total funding and 70% of all deals.
Over the last six months, VC investment in London has been driven by the city’s thriving FinTech sector with Future Fifty member companies Funding Circle and WorldRemit – combined with Azimo and Currency Cloud, raising $472million, which is equivalent to 40% of the total amount raised in London.
In April, Funding Circle, the peer-to-peer lender, which allows people and institutions to bid online to lend money to small businesses, secured the largest deal of the last three month by raising $150m. The company is now valued at more than $1bn.
Samir Desai, CEO and co-founder of Future Fifty member company Funding Circle said: “London continues to be a fantastic place to grow a financial technology company. In just five years, the Funding Circle marketplace has become the fifth largest net lender to small businesses. The money we raised in April will allow us to go on to create a sustainable, category-defining business in a multi-billion dollar global market.”
The investment figures, which are compiled by London & Partners and have been sourced from CB Insights, the venture capital and angel investment database, show that VC investment into UK tech firms during the first six months of 2015 eclipse the same period in 2014 when firms raised just over $1bn and are hundreds of millions of dollars higher than the full 12 month totals from 2010-13. The data comes after research from GP Bullhound, which was released at London Technology Week 2015, revealed that Britain has 17 tech unicorns (companies valued at over $1bn) with 13 in the capital.
London’s army of tech startups are also continuing to secure record levels of funding. DoPay, a FinTech company that graduated from the Barclay’s Tech Stars accelerator programme last year and which allows people who’re excluded from the traditional banking system get access to financial services, successfully raised $2.4m in two separate deals during the last three months.
The amount of money raised by tech companies demonstrates just how quickly the sector is growing across London and the UK. The digital tech sector in London is forecast to boost the capital’s economy by £18bn in 2015, according to research from Oxford Economics.