The Weekly Wrap: all you need to know by Friday COB | Dec 23rd

By Puja Sharma

The Weekly Wrap is published every Friday and recaps the week’s main stories and deals, as well as upcoming events and announcements. For Prime subscribers only.

The Big Story

The UK tech sector will end the year as Europe’s leading ecosystem, retaining its position as the main challenger to the US and China amidst a global backdrop of difficult economic conditions, according to new figures from Dealroom for the Digital Economy Council.

During 2022, fast-growing UK tech companies have continued to raise at near-record levels (£24 billion), more than France (£11.8 billion) and Germany (£9.1 billion) combined. This takes the total raised over the past five years to nearly £100 billion (£97 billion).

Further stats show that the UK has more high-growth companies than European peers having created 144 unicorns and 237 future corns and over 85,000 startups and scale-ups. More venture capital investment than European peers

A forward-thinking approach to regulation encourages digital innovation and competition. Attracted VC funds from across the globe including General Catalyst, Sequoia, and Lightspeed. Eight cities with more than two unicorns including Edinburgh, Nottingham, and Oxford.

The latest figures underline the success of the UK tech economy and its progress as a source of global innovation – a European Silicon Valley. These elements are guiding the expansion of its tech ecosystem, which now employs 3 million people, right across the country.

Sustained investment and growth have forged a global tech powerhouse: Consistent growth across UK tech saw the industry reach the $1 trillion in value milestone earlier this year, making it only the third country ever to hit this valuation after the US and China. This means the UK tech industry is ahead of its European peers and is worth more than double Germany’s ($467.2 billion) and three times more than France’s ($307.5 billion) as well as retaining the lead when it comes to overall funding, unicorns and startups numbers.

Digital minister Paul Scully said, “UK tech has remained resilient in the face of global challenges and we have ended the year as one of the world’s leading destinations for digital businesses. This is good news and reflects our pro-innovation approach to tech regulation, continuing support for start-ups, and ambition to boost people’s digital skills.”

Deals of the week

• EY and TaxBit team up to support tax reporting for digital assets
• Blue to debut a new FinTech app for Iraq and the Middle East
• London FinTech Updraft raises £108m in Series A led by NatWest
• EQT Private Equity completes acquisition of Billtrust in a $1.7b deal
• Wipro and Finastra partner to drive transformation for corporate banks in the Middle East
• Cashfree Payments to offer India’s widest BNPL suite
•  Modefin & MyBank Limited bag Most Effective Bank-FinTech Partnership Award in the IBSi Global FinTech Innovation Awards 2022
• J.P. Morgan invests in ISG to expand its digital payments reach in APAC
• A new Ethiopian Bank chooses Intellect Global Consumer Banking to power its banking
• Moneyhub secures £15m from Standard Life parent to hit £55m funding

Be on the lookout for

The 10th edition of IBEX India, India’s most comprehensive Conference, is set to take place from January 19 to 21, 2023, at the Jio Convention Centre in Mumbai. The conference, “BFSI Tech Trends for Collaborative Banking,” organized alongside a large format exhibition provides a platform for all stakeholders in the BFSI (Banking, financial services, and insurance) sector to come together, explore, understand and deliberate on the challenges and opportunities in adapting innovative & future focused BFSI technologies.

The event will focus on trending topics in IBEX India 2023, such as financial services, future banking, digitization, fintech ecosystem, technology, innovative digital payment solutions, and so on, as a globally influential fintech enterprise with rapid development for over 20 year.