Every industry, every sector of the UK economy is waiting for the next development.
So what does Tech want from Brexit?
How do the entrepreneurs see their future in a country outside of the EU?
Are investors waiting on the sidelines?
And can other cities steal London's start-up crown?
Told in their own words.
The Edge takes a look at Brexit.
My name's Perry Lewis.
I'm one of the co-founders of Mastered and Mastered is a talent development company based in London.
Mastered helps creative professionals who want to work in the fashion industry, get
the skills, the attitude, the network and exposure that they need to succeed.
Over the last two and a half years we've increased the company to about 45 staff.
When we started everything was bootstrapped so we sustained ourselves and then over the
last couple of years we've had investment from some really great investors.
I'm Harry Briggs, partner at BGF ventures.
We are an early stage UK investor in tech companies that we think could really disrupt industries.
We are looking for those outstanding companies that we think have the potential to generate
outstanding outlier returns.
So if we invest for example 3 million pounds for 20 percent in a business we'll only do
that if we think that that business could end up being worth hundreds of millions of
pounds and that three million pounds could become worth, 60 90 100 million pounds.
Now clearly that's not going to happen every time.
But because also some of our investments won't make it because it's a very competitive industry
and it's fast moving and it's hard therefore we have to believe in every investment we
make that it has that potential.
I remember the morning that Brexit happened coming into work and actually having some
of the team on my shoulders crying because even though we live in London.
It's a place where obviously we voted against it.
Actually there was just a sense of like do people want us here; because we’ve come
over to this country because we think there's amazing opportunity but are we wanted?
Are we needed?
What's going to happen to our jobs here?
Will that be effected?
Definitely a moment of realization that all the stuff that often gets talked about in
the news and you see actually has a massive impact on the people that you know here in
real life.
I'm Elizabeth Varley; I’m the founder and CEO of TechHub.
We are the global community for technology entrepreneurs.
I wasn't surprised.
I have to say I thought there was a real chance of it and I did have concerns about that leading
up to it.
My first instinct was to think about my team.
My first act was to send something out to all of our European members and to our European
teams to say we are committed to you being part of what we're doing and we are committed
to helping you succeed in what you want to do.
I’m Rory Sterling.
I'm co-founder and partner of BGF ventures.
We think Brexit has the ability to influence or have an impact on a number of companies
started here in the UK which is why we're really interested in the output or the outcome
rather of the Brexit negotiations.
We want the very best founders anywhere in the world to feel like the U.K. is one of
the leading places to build their company.
My name is Malenko Pillage.
I'm a CEO and founder of HeySuccess dot com.
We provide students and recent graduates from all over the world access to internships,
scholarships, summer schools, conferences abroad and on the other side we help companies
to access a global pool of talent.
For a long time we knew that the UK is a very good location for our type of business.
Education is something that UK is really globally famous for, very cosmopolitan.
The same as our market is.
In 2014 we were contacted by UK trade investment.
They launched a program called Sirius Programme.
It was aimed to attract foreign entrepreneurs and the brightest ideas to the UK and then
scale them up globally.
We won the competition in August 2014 and then in November 2014 we finally, management
team finally moved to London.
And that's how our journey started.
I'm Dr. Peter Chada.
I'm CEO of Dr Pete technology experts, we provide independent technology advice to growing
companies of all descriptions.
I think most people wouldn't think Brexit is ideal for the tech sector but in my view
the UK needs to open its arms around the world.
And technology is not just centred in Europe, it's centered in the States, it’s centred
in Asia and I think we can embrace more being in the tech center worldwide.