Thirteen new companies have joined Tech Nation‘s eleventh ‘Future Fifty’ programme; marking perhaps its most regionally diverse line-up yet.
The Future Fifty programme is a growth programme for late-stage tech businesses. Now in its eleventh year of operation, alumni include the likes of Revolut, Skyscanner, Monzo and Deliveroo.
Over the past 10 years, the programme has supported 30 of the 138 tech unicorns founded in the UK, who have raised £16.3billionn collectively (contributing to over a third of the £47.1billion raised by all UK-founded unicorns).
This week, on the eve of its eleventh year, Tech Nation confirmed the names of the 13 companies due to join the programme.
Collectively, the 13 companies joining Future Fifty 11.0 operate in 19 different countries, confirming it to be the most regionally diverse cohort yet, with 46 per cent of the late-stage companies hailing from outside of London.
The cohort includes:
Faculty
The London-based applied artificial intelligence (AI) company builds AI that helps organisations turn their data into insights, strategies and decisions. Its Frontier product provides a systematic approach to decision intelligence, helping organisations make robust, proactive decisions.
Florence
The London-based healthtech company seeks to address the various challenges surrounding a shortage of healthcare staff with software that helps healthcare providers build, train and operate a flexible staffing pool.
Graphcore
Graphcore, which is headquartered in South West England, has developed an intelligence processing unit (IPU) for AI computing which lets innovators create the next breakthroughs in machine intelligence to enhance human potential.
Huboo
The e-commerce fulfilment provider, again located in South West England, enables retailers to access a complete fulfilment operation. It arranges the picking, packing and posting of products to customers via a global carrier network, allowing online retailers to focus on growing their business.
Paragraf
Somersham-based Paragraf manufactures high-purity graphene (for making electronics) at scale which integrates into ready-to-use products that can be adopted by customers and partners to support the advancement of their technologies.
Speechmatics
Cambridge-based AI company Speechmatics have developed automatic speech recognition technology that understands every human voice. It offers speech recognition for solution and service providers to integrate into their stack regardless of their industry or use case.
The Modern Milkman
The climate tech company, which is based in Manchester, applies technology to help consumers return and reuse packaging while encouraging them to shop ethically and conveniently.
“Future Fifty presents an amazing opportunity to accelerate the work we’re doing as a business that wants to have a positive impact on the environment and drive consumer change,” comments Simon Mellin, CEO of The Modern Milkman.
“The collaboration and knowledge-sharing opportunities we’ve already experienced as members of the Upscale 7.0 cohort have been invaluable,” continues Mellin.
Wayve
The London-based company has developed self-driving technology in an attempt to reimagine autonomous mobility through machine learning. It is the first to deploy autonomous vehicles on public roads with end-to-end deep learning.
Yapily
The London-based open banking platform allows companies to access financial data and initiate payments. Designed and built for open finance, the company builds scalable and secure open banking infrastructure and tools to power innovation.
Yoti
The identity platform, based in London, provides solutions such as reusable digital ID, identity and age verification and e-signatures authentication. Its digital identity app enables onboarding with 5,500 identity documents from over 200 countries and supports 17 languages.
YuLife
The insurance company, being another London native on this list, has created a ‘win-win’ model which benefits individuals, businesses and society. Its app enables YuLife policyholders to complete everyday wellness activities in order to earn YuCoin, which they can use to buy gifts for themselves, friends or family, or to improve the world through planting trees and donating to charity.
Zilch
London’s Zilch enables customers to pay on debit or credit for no interest or late fees. As one of the UK’s first pay-over-time providers to be granted a consumer credit licence by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Zilch’s open banking-backed credit alternative is designed in conjunction with regulators to ensure consumer protection and financial health when borrowing.
Zuto
Macclesfield-based Zuto is working to make car financing more transparent. It aims to eliminate any confusion surrounding whether a customer is actually approved for finance, what APR they will be offered, how much they can borrow, or which selection of lenders customers will be offered. Its platform connects customers with the best lender for their circumstances and uses customer data to return an APR and monthly repayment, with an upfront approval.
Future expansion
As a late-stage tech business, the stakes are high, and Future Fifty was designed to offer guidance to address challenges unique to the most successful tech companies in the country.
All of the companies joining Future Fifty 11.0 are expected to expand over the coming months, with their average projected headcount increase for the next year sitting at over 400 per cent, and with the businesses planning to expand to 44 countries collectively in the next year.
Over the next six months, the newest Future Fifty cohort will be guided through their scaling journey with access to peer-to-peer learning opportunities, open dialogue between experienced entrepreneurs and founders, in-depth masterclass sessions run by seasoned coaches, sessions with key government officials and ministerial roundtables, and access to a dedicated Tech Nation Visa team.
HSBC UK, Evelyn Partners and Slaughter and May will be programme partners for this year’s programme and will provide support, expertise and insights to the new cohort.
