A Future Business Media publication
Idea London

UK startup funding, investor and company data, with the source next to every figure.

Latest guides

Companies Energy Tech Startups London: 6 Firms, Dated Rounds Six London energy tech companies with a dated funding round each: Kraken at $8.65bn, Axle Energy's $25m Series A, Zenobe, Field, Modo Energy and Electron. 5 min read Companies London Tech Company Profiles: Figures You Can Check Profiles of eight London tech companies with one hard, dated figure each, plus how to build your own profile from Companies House filings for free. 5 min read Universities UCL Engineering Startups: Spinouts and What They Raised Nine UCL engineering spinouts with a dated round each: Oriole Networks $22m, Phasecraft $34m, Gaussion $28m. Plus three companies wrongly credited to UCL. 5 min read Funding Data UK Pre-Seed Funding Data: 704 Seed Deals, £2.1bn in 2025 UK seed deals fell 27% to 704 in 2025 while the money held at £2.1bn. Median round £0.6m, mean £3.2m, and 14.4 months between raises. British Business Bank. 6 min read Companies UK SaaS Company Database: Revenue Figures You Can Check Seven UK software companies with filed revenue: Sage £2,513m, Kainos £431.1m, GBG £285.0m, Alfa £126.7m. Each figure carries its reporting period and date. 5 min read Funding Data UK Startup Exit Analysis: £14.2bn Bought in Q1 2026 Foreign buyers took £14.2bn of UK companies across 163 deals in Q1 2026, down from £33.0bn in Q4. London IPOs raised £577m in H1 2026. ONS and EY figures. 6 min read Funding Data UK Startup Funding Tracker: $17bn Raised in H1 2026 UK startups raised about $17bn in the first half of 2026, the strongest half since 2022. Every round below is dated and linked to the announcement that made it. 5 min read Funding Data UK Unicorn Company Tracker: Why Counts Range 80 to 205 Dealroom counts 205 UK unicorns, Hurun counts 80. Both are honest. This page gives each definition, the largest companies, and the deal that set every mark. 7 min read Investors UK Venture Capital Database: Fund Sizes and Stages Eleven UK venture firms, each with a dated public number: Index $3.5bn available, Balderton $1.3bn, Atomico $1.24bn, Seedcamp $320m, plus who is deploying most. 6 min read Universities University Spinouts UK: 2,537 Active, 141 New in 2024-25 HESA's register lists 2,537 active UK university spinouts, with 141 founded in 2024-25 against a peak of 202. Cambridge leads on volume, Oxford on value created. 7 min read

Idea London tracks the British startup market and shows its working. Every number on this site carries the date it was checked and a link to where it came from. Usually that is the company’s own announcement, a Companies House filing or a research house that publishes its method.

That matters more than it sounds. Most startup lists online are two or three years stale. They name companies that have been wound up, quote valuations set before a downturn, and describe funding rounds as “latest” long after they stopped being latest. A dated figure with a source is useful. An undated one is decoration.

What is here

Where the market stands

UK startups raised about $17bn of venture capital in the first half of 2026. That is the strongest opening half since 2022 and roughly double the same period in 2025, on Dealroom and HSBC Innovation Banking figures reported by UKTN. Artificial intelligence took about three quarters of it.

The concentration is the story. A handful of very large rounds now move the national total, so an average tells you almost nothing about the median founder’s year. The valuation tracker lists the marks that set the top of the market, and the dates they were set.

How this site started

Idea London began life as IDEALondon, an innovation centre in Shoreditch backed by Cisco, DC Thomson and UCL. It opened in 2013 and supported more than fifty startups. The about page sets out that record, and what changed afterwards.