Business
Britain’s real scale-up crisis | Richard Alvin
There is a particular kind of dinner I have, every couple of months, in a particular kind of place, a Soho members’ club that lets you bring more than three people without an interrogation, in this case, with a particular kind of British technology founder.
He is, by his late thirties, on his third successful company. He has, between them, raised something north of £180 million in venture capital. He has, currently, about 220 employees in London, with another fifty due to be hired in the coming twelve months. He has, last week, sold a further $40 million tranche of his Series C to two American funds.
And he has, somewhere between his second and third glass of red, told me that he is moving the company’s headquarters to New York. Not on principle. Not on tax. Not on regulation. Not even, despite the obvious temptation in this column, on the Chancellor. He is moving because the next $200 million he needs, in 18 months, is in New York, and the practical day-to-day life of a CEO in a series of monthly trips to a city eight time zones from his children is, frankly, too painful. So he is moving the family. The London office will remain. It will, over time, get smaller. A version of this conversation has happened, by my count, with at least twelve British founders I know personally in the last two years.
Britain does not, in 2026, have a start-up problem. We start-up exquisitely. We have, by any international comparison, more new technology businesses per capita than nearly any other developed economy. Cambridge is, on its own, one of the great clusters of the world. London’s software and fintech ecosystems are deeper than Berlin’s, deeper than Paris’s, comparable to New York’s on most measures, with a couple of exceptions. We have brilliant universities, a working tax-incentive regime in EIS, a meaningful angel community, and a steady flow of seed and Series A capital.
What we have is a stay-at-home problem.
The numbers are visible if anyone bothers to look. UK technology IPOs, by listed value, are running at less than 12 per cent of US listings adjusted for relative GDP. UK Series C and onwards rounds are dominated, by deal count, by American lead investors. The proportion of UK technology companies founded in 2018 that have, by 2025, relocated their corporate domicile overseas, to the US, to Delaware, to Ireland, to Singapore, is now over 22 per cent. The proportion of all UK-founded unicorns that listed on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq, rather than the London Stock Exchange, is over 80 per cent for the last decade. Eighty.
Why? It is not, despite the City lobbying, primarily a tax problem. American capital gains rates are not, in any meaningful sense, more friendly to founders than British rates. It is not, despite a great deal of Treasury-led discussion, a corporate-tax problem. The US corporate tax rate, when you blend federal and state, is comparable. It is not, despite the political mood music, a regulatory problem in the technology sectors that matter, the FCA, where it counts for fintech, is a notably more friendly regulator than its American equivalent.
It is, primarily, a depth-of-capital-pool problem. The UK pension system, despite the most articulate efforts of the Edinburgh Reforms and the Mansion House Compact and a half-dozen subsequent initiatives, allocates an embarrassingly small proportion of its £3 trillion of assets to growth-stage British equities. Canadian pension funds are, statistically, more invested in British scale-ups than British pension funds. This is the absurdity of the present situation: the world’s ninth-largest pension industry, hosted in Britain, is not investing in British growth, and is being out-deployed, in British growth equity, by Canadians, Australians, and Americans.
Fix the depth, and the rest of the problem largely goes with it. There are about three things to do. First, get UK Defined Contribution pension money, which is, by the way, growing at over £100 billion a year, into a properly structured British scale-up vehicle, at a meaningful target allocation, with a proper governance overlay. Second, restore the pre-2008 status of the London Stock Exchange as a competitive listing venue for technology businesses, by reforming the dual-class share structures and the listing-rules architecture that has kept it stranded in the era of utilities and miners. Third, make the EIS reliefs permanent, generous, and unfussy at the seed stage, so that the early-stage capital remains the easiest tier to raise.
None of this is impossible. None of this is even, in the international context, particularly bold. The Australians did most of it in 2008. The Canadians did most of it in 2014. The Singaporeans built theirs in around six years. We are, in 2026, still pondering it.
And in the meantime, my Soho friend will, in the autumn, leave. He will take the family. He will keep the London office. The American round will close. The next British unicorn, and there will be a next British unicorn, will, on present trajectory, list, again, in New York. The Mayoral candidates will, on the day after, all denounce the loss to “Brand London”. And the bottle of red, in our particular Soho members’ club, will be uncorked, again, by someone else.
We start-up brilliantly, in this country. We just need, finally, to learn how to keep them. The May locals, it turns out, are not the only thing on the ballot.
Richard Alvin
Richard Alvin is a serial entrepreneur, a former advisor to the UK Government about small business and an Honorary Teaching Fellow on Business at Lancaster University.
A winner of the London Chamber of Commerce Business Person of the year and Freeman of the City of London for his services to business and charity. Richard is also Group MD of Capital Business Media and SME business research company Trends Research, regarded as one of the UK’s leading experts in the SME sector and an active angel investor and advisor to new start companies.
Richard is also the host of Save Our Business the U.S. based business advice television show.
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Target is recalling several Up & Up baby wipes products sold nationwide after testing identified potentially dangerous bacteria that could cause serious infections, particularly in infants and young children.
According to a recall notice posted Friday by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Target is voluntarily recalling certain lots of Up & Up Fragrance Free Baby Wipes and Up & Up Fresh Cucumber Scented Baby Wipes following customer complaints about product discoloration.
FDA testing identified the presence of Burkholderia cepacia complex and Burkholderia gladioli in samples of the affected wipes.
Health officials warned that products contaminated with the bacteria could lead to serious and potentially life-threatening infections. The wipes are primarily used on newborns, infants and young children, a group considered particularly vulnerable because of their developing immune systems.
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Up & Up Fragrance Free Baby Wipes sold at Target stores nationwide are included in a voluntary recall announced June 2026. (FDA / Unknown)
The FDA said healthy individuals who use the contaminated wipes on skin with minor cuts or abrasions may develop localized infections. However, infections in immunocompromised individuals, newborns and infants could spread into the bloodstream and potentially cause sepsis or pneumonia.
The recalled wipes were manufactured by supplier Sapro Temizlik Urunleri and sold at Target stores nationwide as well as through Target.com.
Target and the manufacturer have received a number of consumer complaints and adverse event reports alleging product discoloration and symptoms including skin irritation, eye irritation and infections that may be linked to use of the wipes. The reports remain under investigation.
A representative for Target did not immediately respond to FOX Business’ request for comment.
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A three-pack of Up & Up Fresh Cucumber Scented Baby Wipes is shown. Target is recalling certain baby wipes products after FDA testing identified potentially harmful bacteria in product samples. (FDA / Unknown)
The recall affects multiple sizes of Up & Up Fragrance Free Baby Wipes, including 20-count, 72-count, 216-count, 800-count and 1,200-count packages, as well as Up & Up Fresh Cucumber Scented Baby Wipes sold in 72-count, 216-count and 800-count packages.
Consumers are being urged to stop using the recalled wipes immediately and return them to any Target store for a full refund.
Target said customers seeking additional information can contact Target Guest Relations at 1-800-440-0680.
The recall is being conducted with the knowledge of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and Target said it is continuing to investigate the matter in coordination with the manufacturer.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TGT | TARGET CORP. | 122.57 | -1.28 | -1.03% |
According to the FDA, the affected Up & Up Fragrance Free Baby Wipes were manufactured between Nov. 7, 2025, and May 5, 2026, and carry expiration dates ranging from May 10, 2028, through Nov. 5, 2028.
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The recalled Up & Up Fresh Cucumber Scented Baby Wipes were manufactured between Dec. 29 and Dec. 30, 2025, and carry expiration dates ranging from June 29, 2028, through June 30, 2028.
A complete list of affected UPCs, manufacturing codes and package sizes is available in the FDA recall notice.
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Luke Pomichter is a defense and national security professional with over a decade of experience spanning intelligence operations, cyber threat intelligence, and security engineering across the defense industrial base. He holds a PhD examining investment decision behavior through a behavioral finance and is a Stanford LEAD Candidate. His research interests sit at the intersection of national security and capital markets — areas where domain expertise is rare among financial professionals and informational edge is highest. He writes on aerospace, defense, and emerging technology equities as a natural extension of his professional background and ongoing graduate work. He is pursuing the CAIA designation and holds the CISSP and multiple GIAC certifications. The author publishes independently. Views expressed are his own and do not represent any employer or affiliated institution.
Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of RYCEY either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
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