Chairing the Innovation Arc panel at London Tech Week

The UK is finally producing world-class science spinouts at scale. But there's no point producing thousands of companies if none of them can grow.

It's time for the deep-tech conversation to move on from how to create more companies, and address what we actually do with them. This was the question we kept coming back to during the Innovation Arc Day I chaired at London Tech Week.

We need a system that goes from ideas right the way through to release and finance, procurement, pull through and adoption.

That was Lord Vallance, putting it directly in his opening remarks.

The panel I moderated, Michael Moore, Duncan Johnson, Phil Clare and Anne Glover, landed on the same diagnosis from four sides, with the conversation gravitating to culture, not structure.

The gap with the US on spinouts is about attitudes more than equity now. Universities open to outsiders, founders given room to run, an instinctive yes rather than a default no. I grew up in Maryland, and the contrast is striking. It's also the half of the gap that's much harder to close.

I've spent almost a decade training scientists, building companies, and investing capital behind them. At every step I've found myself either building new infrastructure or fighting the old ways of doing things. One person can't fix that. It needs system change. It feels like that might finally be starting to catch on.

Thanks to Eddy Boyle and the London Tech Week team for organising such a great event.