7 March 2024 - The Canopy's innovation manager, Jie Zhou, reacts to the budget from the perspective of startups in the UK - including why the government needs to provide more support for scaling up.
The UK Spring Budget was announced in March of this year by the Conservative government. It needed to show a bold mix of policies in order to capture a crucial business vote, and to set the stage for an election year long in the making. Jie Zhou, Innovation Manager at Canopy gave her response saying she was pleased with the vision but the Government must go further. ‘For the UK to truly rival Silicon Valley, it must create the conditions for disruptive innovation by building the skills pipeline and ensuring businesses have access to talent. We urge the government to provide more support for scaling up. Without this investment, we won’t be able to compete on a global stage – especially with the US due to the size of the market and the size of their capital. The UK needs to pivot from being a startup nation to a scale-up nation.”