By Bhairav Patel, CTO, Teybridge Capital Europe
London at its best…
I have never been to London Tech Week, which is strange since I’ve been in the tech game for almost 30 years. This year, however, I’m pleased to say that I was Irish for a few days and attended as part of the Irish delegation to London on behalf of Teybridge Capital Europe.
Firstly I have to say that the delegation was great, even though I’m based in London, each of the companies I met were a business that we could collaborate with or help out and that, in my experience, is very rare.
So as a newbie to the event, what were my first impressions? Well firstly it was heartening to see how many countries and companies were represented at the main event and all of the side events which echoes how London is still a place to attract companies, talent and money – just this year start-ups have raised over £8B in the capital.
Overall the themes are the usual ones: AI is here to stay, Quantum is going to change our lives in ways we can’t fathom but what was really interesting to me and for all of us in the Financial Services industry is how the UK is really making a play for stablecoins.
The FCA was out in full force, each event I attended there were people from the regulator stressing how entrepreneurial they are and how they’re looking for London to become a hub of innovation in the tokenised asset and stablecoin space and as someone that built the first company to provide trade finance on the blockchain using smart contracts, this was music to my ears.
I’ve spent many years in Asia and I’ve always been frustrated by the slow pace of change here in the UK but now, with the novel innovations that the FCA is making combined with the fact that they are willing to include businesses of all sizes, I can see a clear path for how businesses like ours can bring innovation to the trade finance space and help companies grow by reducing costs of borrowing and increasing the speed that money moves.
Beyond stablecoins I was fascinated to see what was going on north of the border and I had the opportunity to meet with some of my old Scottish network to learn about what’s new up there and those conversations highlighted to me something very important. Though London Tech Week has London in the title, it doesn’t stop at London, I was at events with Indonesian, Malaysian, Indian and UK regional politcians and business leaders.
London Tech Week is about showcasing all that we’re doing in the UK, let’s take Scotland as an example. Scotland has, for a long time now, been pushing to be the data centre capital of Europe, leveraging their cold weather to cool down data centres whilst at the same time heating up the homes that surround them. I was completely unaware that private energy lines were being built in Scotland and that data centre builders and renewable energy producers were working alongside the government to provide jobs and funding to local communities.
This is something I think we should be talking about more and really the future for growth in this country is in its regions, yes, London can attract the money, celebrities and huge multi-national corporations but the real juice of our UK economy is squeezed from the SMEs that dot around this land and from what I can see local areas are finding innovative and dare I say it, entrepreneurial solutions to problems that have been plaguing us for decades.
At the heart of Teybridge Capital is our understanding of what it is like to start, scale and grow a business and we know what the demands are like on small business owners and those problems are the same no matter where you are. As the UK grows, we will grow and as the regions start investing, we’ll be alongside them.
