Next steps: Britain's top 100 young founders have built cheetahs, gazelles and unicorns, but will some reach Big Tech status?

Looking at the UK startup ecosystem, it's easy to get the impression that entrepreneurship - certainly in the realm of fast-growing, venture capital-backed companies - is something big. a game for young people. Perhaps, to some extent, it is. Certainly, a disproportionate number of founders I speak to are under forty, a large number are in their twenties, and a handful have yet to celebrate their twenty-first birthday.

You could say that the relative youth of the startup community reflects a willingness to take risks and pursue ideas before other pressures, such as raising children and paying off mortgage payments, begin to be felt. And you might also point to the fact that entrepreneurship is seen as a far more career option for graduates and school leavers in Britain than fifteen or twenty years ago.

But here's the question. Will the next generation of Gen Z founders create the powerful companies of tomorrow or will the most successful among them just grow their business to a relatively small size before selling and moving on to the next project. The UK has its share of successful startups, scale-ups and, increasingly, unicorns, but so far there isn't really a UK innovation company that could be described. as operating in the field of "big tech".

A kind of journey

But the hope must clearly be that some sort of journey is underway. Today's young (or relatively young founders) are on a path that will eventually see some of them build multi-billion dollar global businesses. So how is it going ? A report from a research institute, Hurun, suggests progress is being made.

Published this week, Hurun's UK Under 30 report bills itself as a celebration of young entrepreneurial talent and identifies the top 100 companies created and run by founders who have not yet crossed the line. course of "three zeros".

But perhaps more importantly, the report provides a clue as to what might happen next in the UK startup ecosystem.

But let's start with the headlines. Hurun finds that the entrepreneurs on the list have built businesses with an average value of £100m. As Hurun Report president and chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf acknowledges, that average is skewed by the presence of three unicorns, in the form of events company Hopin, insuretech firm Marshmallow and fitness, Gymshark. Nevertheless, the £100 million average confirms that we are talking about very successful companies.

The average age of the founders on the list is 28, with the youngest - Edward Beccle of religious app Glorify - being 23. It's perhaps unsurprising that most of the top 100 startups are based in London, along with the English Midlands. in second place. Fashion and Food & Beverage are the most represented sectors.

But let's look beyond the headlines. What does this list say about the future? Commenting on the results, Hoogewerf said: “If they can build such a big company at the age of 30, imagine how big they could be when they reach the age of Jeff Bezos, James Dyson or Warren Buffett. . You can safely say that they are the most likely billionaires of the future, especially as founding teams and investors are becoming more experienced in knowing how to focus on value creation rather than sales. »

Climb the ladder?

In this analysis, you can extrapolate an entrepreneurial journey that begins with real success at a young age, equipping the entrepreneurs in question with the skills and experience to do bigger things as they get older. And there is evidence...