United Kingdom startup ecosystem
The UK — and London in particular — remains Europe's deepest capital market for startups. World-class universities, a strong financial services sector, and a dense network of experienced operators make it a magnet for fintech, AI, and biotech ventures. Despite Brexit-related shifts, the UK continues to produce more unicorns than any other European country. The directory currently lists 306 organisations across 20 cities.
Showing 81–100 of 306 United Kingdom
Cities in United Kingdom
Types in United Kingdom
United Kingdom results
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ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs is a London-headquartered AI audio platform that has built one of the world's most advanced voice-synthesis stacks. Its products span text-to-speech in 70+ languages, instant and professional voice cloning, an automated dubbing studio across 90+ languages, real-time conversational voice agents, AI sound effects and an audio production suite; the ElevenReader app offers a large catalogue of licensed human-narrated audiobooks. Enterprise clients range from Deutsche Telekom and Revolut to the Ukrainian Government, and in 2026 ElevenLabs integrated its voice capabilities into IBM's watsonx Orchestrate. Founded in 2022 by Polish childhood friends Mati Staniszewski (CEO, ex-Palantir) and Piotr Dąbkowski (CTO, ex-Google), the company raised a $2M pre-seed from European funds Credo Ventures and Concept Ventures, then scaled rapidly: a $19M Series A (2023), $80M Series B at $1.1B (2024), $180M Series C at $3.3B (2025), and a $500M Series D at an $11B valuation led by Sequoia Capital (2026), with a later extension adding BlackRock, NVIDIA and others. With cumulative funding over $781M and ARR past $500M, ElevenLabs is among the fastest-growing AI companies in Europe.
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Entrepreneur First
Entrepreneur First (EF) is a London-headquartered talent-first investor founded in 2011 by Matt Clifford and Alice Bentinck, both former McKinsey consultants. EF pioneered the concept of Talent Investing — recruiting exceptional individuals before they have a co-founder or idea, then supporting them to form teams and build companies — across offices in London, Paris, Bangalore, New York, and San Francisco. The firm manages a fund of $158 million and has helped create over 600 companies with a combined portfolio value exceeding $11 billion. EF's standout portfolio companies include Tractable (AI for accident repair, valued at ~$1 billion), Cleo (personal finance AI), and Magic Pony Technology (acquired by Twitter).
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Episode 1 Ventures
Episode 1 Ventures is a London-based seed and pre-seed fund founded in 2013 by Simon Murdoch, Damien Lane, and Adrian Lloyd, all experienced entrepreneurs who have built and exited companies. The firm closed its third fund at £76 million in February 2024, bringing total capital managed to over £170 million across three vehicles. Episode 1 focuses on software-driven businesses in AI, infrastructure, health, open-source, and marketplace sectors, writing initial cheques of up to £2 million. The fund has backed 69 companies and achieved a 73% Series A graduation rate — three times the industry average — with notable portfolio companies including Carwow, Huboo, CloudNC, and Robin AI.
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Euan Blair
Founder and CEO of Multiverse, the apprenticeship-focused alternative to university that reached unicorn status. He started the company to widen access to high-quality careers through applied training rather than degrees.
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Felix Capital
Felix Capital is a London-based venture capital firm, founded in 2015 and based on Beak Street, that invests at the intersection of technology and creativity. It backs digital lifestyle, consumer and creative-economy companies alongside related enterprise tools, describing its focus as building for the 'creative class' across home, work and in-between.
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Festival of Entrepreneurs 2026
A founder-centric event at the NEC expecting 5,000 founders, 200 speakers, and 150 exhibitors. The 2026 agenda targets the decisions founders are making now — raising capital, applying AI in the business, leadership, and preparing to scale.
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Fifth Dimension AI
London-based AI decision-intelligence platform for real-assets investors and managers. Its agentic AI Ellie unifies fragmented institutional and market data to prepare deal analyses, draft IC memos, monitor portfolio variance, and surface risk proactively. Serves clients with 98.4% accuracy on high-value lease-data extractions. Raised €22M Series A led by HV Capital.
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FinovateEurope 2026
Fintech demo conference with a no-slides rule: 7-minute live product demos only. Price: about GBP 2299 general, with startup rates around GBP 799. Audience skews to senior banking decision makers looking for vendors.
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FinTech North: Leeds 2026
The tenth annual FinTech North Leeds conference, debuting a Pitch360 startup competition and backed by West Yorkshire Combined Authority and Mastercard. A direct, founder-relevant day for a Northern fintech startup to pitch, meet investors, and connect with corporates.
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FinTech North: Newcastle 2026
The sixth annual Newcastle conference from FinTech North, the focal point for fintech in the North East. Aimed at fintech founders, banks, and investors, it covers payments, AI, fraud, and regulation — a practical day for a North-East fintech startup to meet partners and corporates.
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FinTech Scotland
FinTech Scotland is a strategic cluster management organisation established in 2018, dedicated to driving financial inclusion through fintech innovation and collaboration across Scotland. Based in Edinburgh, it supports an ecosystem of over 250 fintech firms spanning WealthTech, InsureTech, RegTech, Payments, and Open Banking. It leads the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL) as part of the UK Government's Innovation Accelerator programme and is an active partner in Glasgow Tech Week.
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Fintech Summit 2026 (Edinburgh)
A national fintech summit at the EICC Edinburgh, with content spanning green wealthtech, payments, and AI. Good for a Scottish or UK fintech founder wanting investor and ecosystem exposure at low cost.
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Fintech Talents Festival 2026
Billed as the UK's largest fintech festival, with nine content stages on open finance, payments, embedded finance, AI transformation, and fraud at The Brewery in London. For a fintech founder it offers broad coverage of regulatory and product trends plus access to banks and incumbents in one place.
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Firstminute Capital
Firstminute Capital is a London-based seed-stage venture firm founded by Brent Hoberman (Lastminute.com, Founders Forum) and Spencer Crawley. The fund backs first-cheque seed rounds across consumer, B2B SaaS, deep tech, and AI, with a strong LP base that includes more than 100 European founders. Firstminute is known for its global founder network and for taking convicted bets very early in a startup's life.
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Flo Health
Flo Health is the world's most popular women's health app, offering AI-powered period and ovulation tracking, pregnancy monitoring, and personalized health insights to over 300 million users. The company combines reproductive health data with machine learning to provide tailored content and predictions, and has expanded into telehealth and wellness features. Flo represents a major European consumer health success story.
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Food & Drink Expo 2026
UK's largest food trade show with healthy and plant-based zones. Price: free trade registration. Strong for foodtech and CPG startups seeking retail listings.
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Food & Drink Expo 2027
Food & Drink Expo 2027 runs 12-14 April at the NEC Birmingham as part of the UK Food & Drink Shows, alongside the Farm Shop & Deli Show, National Convenience Show, Forecourt Show and Foodex Manufacturing Solutions. The 2026 edition drew thousands of visitors connecting with 1,200+ suppliers from retail, wholesale, foodservice and manufacturing.
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Founders Factory
Founders Factory is a London-based venture studio and accelerator founded in 2015 by Brent Hoberman, Henry Lane Fox, and George Northcott. The firm co-builds and accelerates pre-seed and seed stage startups across fintech, health, climate, media, and consumer sectors, operating sector-specific programmes with corporate partners including Aviva, L'Oréal, and Deutsche Telekom. Since launch, Founders Factory has backed over 300 companies globally, which have collectively raised more than $800 million in follow-on funding. Its venture studio model — co-founding businesses from day zero — distinguishes it from conventional accelerators and gives it a distinctive builder-investor role in the European ecosystem.
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Founders Forum 2026
Invitation-only gathering of top tech founders, CEOs, and investors at a prestigious London venue. Known for intimate, high-trust networking and off-the-record conversations among Europe's most influential technology leaders.
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Founders4Schools
Founders4Schools was founded in 2013 by Sherry Coutu CBE as a charity connecting UK students with founders and employers to improve employability and bridge the skills gap. In 2017 it launched Workfinder, an app that lets young people search for and apply to work-experience placements at fast-growing companies. The organisation operates at the intersection of the startup ecosystem and education, complementing Coutu's work at the ScaleUp Institute.
