House of Lords warns the UK is bleeding its best inventions as DeepMind went to Google, Arm to SoftBank, Skyscanner to Ctrip, Graphcore collapsed, and Hopin fled London…

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UK Innovation Is Bleeding To Death:

The House of Lords Science & Tech Committee just dropped a brutal 2025 report:

“We’re world-class at inventing… and world-class at losing it.”

– DeepMind? London-born. Google’s now.

– Arm? Cambridge chip genius. SoftBank owned.

– Graphcore? Bristol AI unicorn. Folded into SoftBank – 500+ UK jobs gone.

– Skyscanner? Edinburgh unicorn. £1.4B to Chinese Ctrip – control vanished.

– Hopin? £4B peak in London. Liquidated UK ops in 2024 to chase US scale.

This isn’t bad luck. It’s a system failure.

THE DOOM LOOP

1. UK invents

2. No capital

3. Forced to sell/move abroad

4. No jobs, tax, growth

5. Even less capital

Productivity is flat since 2008. Real wages stagnant. We’re trapped.

5 KILLER FINDINGS

– Pensions ghosted tech – UK funds invest <1% in growth ventures (US: ~8%). They’d rather buy US bonds than back British AI.

– Gov is siloed & slow – Innovate UK, BBB, NWF all separate. UAE deploys billions in a call. We play checkers while they play chess.

– We block talent – £1,500+ visa fees + 8-week waits. Top engineers go to Berlin/SF.

DeepMind thrived on immigrants – then Google poached the ecosystem.

– Regulators fear risk – Over-regulate at lab scale, wonder why no one scales.

RADICAL FIXES – ACT NOW

1. Pension Power-Up

Mandate 5% of UK pensions to growth equity by 2030 → £100BN+ patient capital.

2. British Scale-Up Command:
Merge Innovate UK + BBB + NWF into one agile agency:

• £10BN fund
• 90-day decisions
• Co-invest mandates

3. Golden Visa for Founders
• £0 fees
• 24-month scale-up visa
• Settlement at £10M revenue
Attract 1,000 global founders/year.

4. “Fail Fast” Regulation

24-month sandbox for all new tech. Regulators in startups. Fast-track winners. Learn from failures.

5. Celebrate Builders

• National Scale-Up Day
• Tax breaks on employee shares
• Founder in Residence @ No. 10

Culture eats strategy. Make building cool again.

We’re at a tipping point.

Lose another decade = more DeepMinds lost forever.

Act now = next unicorns stay British.

Read the full report: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5901/ldselect/ldsctech/192/19202.htm

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