Almost half of international founders in the UK say networking is one of the biggest challenges for them while fundraising in the country; nearly one in five (18.5%) said the same about conservative attitudes in the ecosystem, according to a recent survey.
Other challenges mentioned include bias against immigrants and cultural differences. The survey was conducted by Blue Lake, a London-based VC that backs diaspora founders, and took responses from more than 300 founders from 72 countries and 66 UK investors.
For years, the UK tech scene has strongly benefited from the input of foreign talent. Foreign-born entrepreneurs were behind 39% of the country’s 100 fastest-growing companies as of 2023, according to research from think tank The Entrepreneurs Network based on Beauhurst data.
But a combination of Brexit and the UK governments’ different plans to curb the number of newcomers in the country appear to have made it a less welcoming place for immigrant founders.
“Since Brexit, the UK has faced competition from both the US and the EU in attracting tech talent and founders,” says David Gilgur, a founding partner at Blue Lake VC. “Anti-immigrant sentiments are unlikely to attract the best and brightest, who must navigate a costly and complex UK visa application process.
“With the rapid growth of tech ecosystems in Portugal, France and Germany, along with emerging ecosystems in Asia and the constant pull of the US, the UK tech sector risks following a host of other once successful and now nearly forgotten British industries,” Gilgur adds.
In the last couple of years, the former UK government pulled funding from the agency that organised the global tech talent visa that helped bring thousands of talented tech workers to the UK (that visa programme is still running). It also made founders pay a lot of money to secure endorsement for the country’s Innovator Founder visa, and planned to increase the salary threshold for overseas “skilled workers”. The new Labour government has also pledged to cut down the net migration to the country.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/immigrant-founder-uk-tech/
