10 Sep High Growth Ecosystems Across London: Battle of the Boroughs
Beauhurst recently released a report mapping the high-growth ecosystems across London, comparing and contrasting them using heat maps. Currently, over 14k companies operating in London meet one or more of Beauhurst’s tracking triggers for high-growth companies, and these companies have an average of 72 employees and a combined turnover of £167 billion.
The most common sectors in London are technology-based, with 13.9% of high growth companies operating in the SaaS sector, and among the tech verticals, fintech make up 7.2% and artificial intelligence 6.9%. In terms of gender dynamics, male-founded companies make up 80.7% of the ecosystem while female founded ones account for only 17.4%, which is in line with the national trend in high growth companies.
The London company ecosystem is fairly mature, with 35.9% companies operating in the seed change and 36.4% operating in the later stages of growth and established. As for funders in the capital, Seedrs comes in the first place in a staggering 879 fundraisings. Following behind is Crowdcube and Future Fund.
Looking at the breakdown of London companies across the 32 boroughs, we find that the inner boroughs of Westminster, City of London, Camden, Islington and Hackney are the most saturated. Equity investment is the most common form of growth for startups. Here, we find that funding is most concentrated in the central boroughs. Innovation grants are another method of growth. With 12% of the companies located in Lambeth securing innovation grants, Lambeth takes the top spot. This type of funding is traditionally associated with medical/healthcare services.
The four boroughs with the lowest percentage of companies receiving equity funding are the four boroughs with the highest percentages of companies with 20% scaleup status. Interestingly—by this metric—it is actually the central boroughs with the lowest proportion of companies achieving 20% scaleup. This could be indicative of many factors. For example, it is feasible that as companies grow their headcount and need larger offices, they opt to relocate to outer boroughs where rent for office space is more affordable.