Build here, sell there, lose out
Why we struggle to keep the best.
Happy Wednesday,
We're in peak events season and Orlando Crowcroft was at techUK's Innovation Summit yesterday where most talks boiled down to why Britain struggles to keep its most promising companies. The vibe was cautious, but the answers covered equity stakes, financing, procurement and policy.
AI is accelerating entrepreneurship
Technology is making it easier to start a business and reach customers around the world.
According to Shopify data, 78% of merchants globally built their own store and 43% more made their first sale within a day of signing up compared to 2022.
Once they are up and running, they also sell internationally. In the UK, export sales are up 136% since 2022.
For an economy looking to export more, The Entrepreneur Effect shows how technology is lowering the barriers to starting up and selling abroad.
Happening Today 📆
Your turn: The FT hosts an AI Summit with speakers including Mozilla’s Mark Surman, Joëlle Pineau, from Cohere, and a closing keynote from Bill Gates.
Parliament: MPs on the Science and Technology Committee hear from experts on “low-energy” compute at 9:30am, as part of their ongoing inquiry.
Trumped: Alongside the midterms in the US, data centre projects were on the ballot in 40 areas yesterday. The public voted against every single one, Semafor's tech reporter points out.
Forecast: A report from German cloud provider Codesphere picks up on the theme of yesterday's edition, arguing the UK public sector has drifted into dependence on US cloud providers. It warns the £40bn National Cloud Infrastructure Programme could entrench the problem.
In today's edition:
🇬🇧 Founders on why we struggle to keep the best of British
💬 The AI minister on circular financing, cyber risks and data centres
