London is one of the best cities in the WORLD for entrepreneurship. If you’re in London, it might not always feel like it though, and if you’re outside of the UK, you probably wouldn’t realize this at all.

Let’s start with the facts

London is consistently ranked the best place for startups in Europe, and even more impressively, it’s ranked third in the WORLD. That’s #3 after THE Silicon Valley and THE New York City, and before Paris, Tel Aviv, Beijing, Bangalore, and even Los Angeles and San Fran.

The thing is, it’s still pretty young. The tech ecosystem has only been building here really seriously for around 15 years, and even 10 years ago, it looked very different. Less support from companies and governments, less recognition, and a much smaller community.

Why London

There are a lot of reasons that founders from all over Europe, and indeed the world, will make their way here. For tech startups, we happen to be SECOND in the WORLD (just behind Silicon Valley) due to our creation and adoption of tech and our attraction of talent to people interested in tech and startups from across the country (and again, across Europe). We also attract entrepreneurial talent across Europe so easily because it’s easier to start and manage a business here, there are tax breaks and incentives, and some grant money, all of which is relatively accessible to entrepreneurs of all backgrounds.

Room to grow

We have a long way to go though, and don’t do everything right. Other parts of Europe are much better than us, for example, at providing grant funding and making it easily accessible, which means research into new technologies (and more interesting technologies, the kind that spawn Deeptech startups) becomes much more possible.

London also tends to annoy the rest of the UK for attracting so much of its talent and startups, taking those people and economic benefits away from other cities in the UK.

Going forward

Both because there are so many people, and because we have further to go, it’s important that we connect the ecosystem together, help people focus, and celebrate our wins. That’s why Founders Live London is so great - it gets people interested and supporting each other and the community, gets us chatting, learning, and supporting some startups to succeed even further. 

Our tickets tend to sell out VERY fast to our 120 person venue, so make sure you’re following along here and here to get yourself to our next events!