Top trends from London Tech Week 2023

Under the blazing June sun, thousands of tech leaders gathered for London Tech Week 2023. This annual event showcases ground-breaking tech advancements with the potential to address some of our most pressing global challenges. It does this by bringing together global tech innovators, early-stage startups, thought leaders, and policymakers in conversation.

Our Advised team was on the ground, attending the myriad of roundtables, keynotes and of course, manning the Superscript booth in the exhibition space. Here are the team’s key takeaways from the event.

The UK is open for tech

UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak opened the event with a rousing keynote speech, highlighting that London is “one of the world’s tech capitals”, and that a key point in his agenda for growth in the UK economy is to “go even further and make this the best country in the world to start, grow, and invest in tech businesses”.

He also emphasised the government's objective to double the number of tech startups in the UK, cultivating them through scaling to exit. In the last decade, as Sunak touched upon, the UK has created 134 unicorns, behind only the US and China in number.

London specifically, has seen exponential growth in the last 10 years, with investment in startups growing from $70 billion in 2014 to $621 billion in 2023, solidifying the capital as a global hub for innovation. It’s seen as a hotbed of talent and the government is keen to be seen as ‘supportive’ of the sector.

This goes hand in hand with venture capital (VC) giant Andreessen Horowitz announcing that it is to open their first office outside of the US, in London. As one of the tech world's largest VCs, it is testament to the great work being done here by the tech community.

AI is here to stay

The overall opinion on artificial intelligence (AI) across the week was bullish. AI controversy has been dominating headlines over recent months with calls from industry leaders for caution on its use-cases. With the European Union’s AI Act taking the lead on regulation, there is growing discussion on requirements for regulation in the space.

Whilst AI technology has been kicking around for decades, it’s the monumental leap into mainstream adoption which has got tongues wagging in recent months. We’re seeing a mass acceptance of the wider population on a scale never seen before with such revolutionary tech, even CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management Nicolai Tangen, is getting onboard with it.

The unparalleled power of ESG

Whilst environmental, social and governance (ESG) discussions are nothing new on the tech scene, there was a very obvious focus on climate and clean tech across the board. There were many exciting products showcased from ultra lightweight solar cells to satellite-enabled biodiversity monitoring which promise great strides in sustainability advancement.

The UK government also announced its pledge of over £4 million for emerging space-based solar projects, illustrating its commitment to clean energy development.

Alongside environmental discussions, was the theme of diversity. Highlighted in particular was the feeling that the London tech scene doesn’t match up to the overall diversity of the city itself. According to a whitepaper by Tech Nation on diversity in UK tech, published in 2023, half of workers in the labour market as a whole are women, but in tech, the number sits at just 26%. And whilst the tech sector has a marginally higher proportion of Black, Asian and minority ethnic workers (BAME) at 15.2%, this does not represent the UK population of 20%.

On this theme, there were sessions highlighting best practices for employers and discussions on building pathways for the inclusion of diverse talent.

What happened at our booth

We love meeting people and chatting all things tech and insurance with time-poor, ambition-rich tech leaders, and so this was a huge opportunity for our team to do just that!

It was great to meet everyone who stopped by our booth over an action-packed few days for some seriously insightful discussions. We loved chatting about AI, blockchain, fintech, medtech and of course — the thing that gets our hearts fluttering — generative insurance that reflects the growth of the tech companies we support. See you next year!