Five things the state needs to do to promote a healthy, valuable tech ecosystem: - Make it easy to start a company. - Make it easy to start a fund. - Remove blockers for institutional LPs. - Create growth flywheels with equity. - Don't complicate things. VC outcomes are power law distributed. Tax incentives and government funding initiatives are fundamentally trivial next to simply creating an environment where great outcomes are more likely. There is a lack of growth capital in the UK and Europe, but there is also a lack of good growth opportunities. Simply throwing money at the problem will not solve it; it is partially a pipeline problem. The UK has incredible entrepreneurial talent, but it is criminally underserved by finance at the earliest stages thanks to poorly designed regulation. For example, there are very few sub-£20M funds in the UK, because of the prohibitive costs. In contrast, US microfunds play a critical role as the earliest investors in the most innovative startups. Fixing the regulatory issues and shifting government funding toward emerging managers to ease market entry are the clearest wins here. In summary, there are two clear opportunities for UK tech and associated economic growth: 1) Make it easier to start a fund to incease the supply of attractive startups. 2) Unlock pension capital to fill the growing appetite of these companies. These measures are fairly straightforward, and neither costs the government anything. In fact, there are net savings to be found in reducing current tax schemes and growth funding initiatives. These changes will produce significant economic growth over time, plus job creation, sovereign technology and more diversity of opportunity. Post inspired by @stanboland's excellent write-up shared this morning: stanboland.substack.com/p/re… More on the government's role in funding innovation: blog.joinodin.com/p/national…