Investment in the UK’s tech sector surged to a record-breaking £10.1 billion in 2019, with FinTech leading the charge on £4.1 billion - more than double the total funding for the sector in 2018.

Data from Tech Nation and Dealroom showed that overall investment in UK tech companies increased by £3.1 billion last year- up 44 per cent on 2018- making the UK the strongest market in the world for growth in this sector, and smashing previous records.

London now competes with San Francisco, Beijing and New York for venture capital investment in tech firms.

The best performing sectors in 2019 for London were FinTech, artificial intelligence (AI) and deep tech. FinTechs secured £4.1 billion, up from £2 billion in 2018.

Compared with Germany and France, UK fintechs raised an impressive 7.5 times the amount raised by French fintechs, and three times as much as fintech firms in Germany.

Standout FinTech firms for last year were Sumup and Checkout, which achieved ‘unicorn’ valuations of $1 billion, while fintech Greensill launched the biggest funding round in UK history with its $800million raise from Softbank’s Vision Fund.

There were also significant fundraises from the likes of World Remit ($197m), Monzo ($147m) and Starling Bank ($98m).

Tom Blomfield, co-founder and CEO of Monzo said: “It’s great to see that the UK tech sector is leading the way globally, with investors continuing to demonstrate strong confidence in UK-bred businesses and the fintech sector here. This is the result of a unique ecosystem of talented people, ambitious innovation and a progressive regulatory framework.”

On a global sale, the UK’s tech sector raised a third of the total £30.4 billion funding -more than Germany and France combined- which came in at second and third at £5.4 billion and £3.4 billion.

Britain’s tech sector grew more than all other countries included in the report, including tech giants US and China, which saw a drop in investment of 20 per cent and 65 per cent.

In AI and deep tech, investments in Benevolent AI ($90m), Melody ($60m) and Wayve ($20m) helped push the investment total across these sectors to £2.5bn – up from £2bn from 2018.

While clean energy is a smaller market, OVO Energy’s $260m deal, alongside $81m investments in photovoltaic and solar panel firm Oxford PV and BBOXX, similarly helped push 2019’s total investment in this sector to just short of $1bn for the first time, up 45 per cent increase on 2018.

Cindy Rose, UK chief executive of Microsoft, said: “These numbers clearly show that if you want to invest in a high potential technology business, then you need look no further than the UK. Our fast-growing tech companies, supported by a highly skilled workforce, are laying the foundations for continued success in decades to come.

She added: “Equally importantly, we must make sure that we fully embrace the power of technology and AI to help strengthen our economy, ensure our future competitiveness and tackle some of the major challenges facing our society.”

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