Tech Nation event – UK Tech on the Global Stage Report 2019

On Wednesday 17th July, we attended an event at Tramshed Tech in Cardiff, showcasing Tech Nation’s 2019 report, “UK Tech on the Global Stage”.

Tech Nation provides help and support to tech entrepreneurs across the UK through various initiatives, such as growth programmes, its visa scheme and skills workshops.

The event was well attended by budding tech entrepreneurs and professionals from across Wales and beyond, with a particular focus on the tech landscape in Wales.

Wales’ growing tech sector

Guest speaker, the Rt Hon Alun Cairns MP, Secretary of State for Wales, kicked the evening off by highlighting the wealth of opportunities and talent available in the tech sector in Wales.

In particular, he discussed the growth in industries such as cyber and fintech and the desire for Wales to become the go-to place for businesses and customers in these industries.

Tech Nation’s Entrepreneur Success Director, Mike Jackson, then presented some of the key facts and figures from the report, including:

• Investment for UK scaleup digital tech firms grew by 61% between 2017 and 2018.
• Investment in artificial intelligence grew by almost six times from 2014 to 2018.
• The UK ranks fourth in the world for scaleup investment.

The report is the fourth to be produced by Tech Nation, but is the first to look at UK tech at a worldwide level and to focus on how certain cities within the UK compare with cities around the world.

As well as looking at global tech performance, the report discusses people in tech and emerging technologies such as data science.

Opportunities and challenges for tech in Wales

Tech Nation’s Entrepreneur Engagement Manager for Wales, Gino Brancazio, highlighted some of the exciting developments and opportunities in the tech landscape in Wales.

We were pleased to see a number of our clients singled out as examples of recent successes.

The evening concluded with a panel discussion focusing on the opportunities and challenges facing the tech industry in Wales. The panel consisted of:

• Christian Kumar – Investor and Corporate Financier, Capital Kinetics
• Louise O’Shea – CEO of Confused.com
• Louise Harris – Co-founder of Tramshed Tech and CEO of Big Learning Company
• Marc Thomas – CEO, doopoll

One of the common themes that arose during the discussions was the importance of collaboration, both within Wales and beyond.

The panellists all agreed that the tech sector in Wales is like a small village, with everybody having some sort of connection to everybody else, and stressed how important this is to the success and growth of the tech industry in Wales.

The panellists also discussed some of the challenges facing start-ups, including securing funding and ensuring that it is allocated effectively, the lack of ambition compared to entrepreneurs from other regions of the UK, particularly London, and the difficulty of making the transition from a start-up to a scale-up.

Supporting Wales’ tech businesses

The evening was very informative for anybody with an interest in the tech industry and demonstrated the huge potential for growth in tech in Wales, the UK and beyond.

Acuity Law has a thriving tech team with vast experience in advising tech companies, from start-ups to established international organisations, on a range of matters including corporate structuring, spin-outs, investments, IP protection, software licensing, cloud computing, blockchain applications, AI and machine learning, IoT, collaboration agreements, data protection and cyber security.