OakNorth boss: Government must lure investors to lock-in homegrown tech firms
The government must lure investors to the UK if it is to lock-in homegrown tech firms, the co-founder of London-based fintech OakNorth has said.
London, which was today overtaken by Paris as Europe’s biggest stock market, has been “having a tough time convincing technology companies to list here,” Rishi Khosla wrote in The Times today.
British chip designer Arm is the latest example. The company has reportedly been mulling an IPO but is torn between home soil and the States.
If the government wants more tech companies to list in the UK, then they “must get the growth investors to the UK to understand the strength of the tech ecosystem first hand,” Khosla explained.
“London is a city in a league of its own: it’s a thriving tech hub, home to a global finance centre with an enviable reputation as a beacon for strong regulation,” he wrote.
“With new leadership, an economic downturn that means fewer companies are listing in the short term and hundreds of billions of dollars being wiped off the market values of US-listed tech businesses, there’s an opportunity for the country to take stock and see what can be done to make London more attractive for growth investors.
“If policymakers can get this right, the technology companies will inevitably follow.”
Khosla, who helped establish OakNorth in 2015, added that ministers must also consider how to make the first two years of being a public company “less onerous” for firms.