Saul Klein: It’s time British savers benefited from UK scale-up success
Saul KleinDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, co-founder and chair of Phoenix Court (home to LocalGlobeDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, LatitudeDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and SolarDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →), argues on CityAM that Britain is already the world’s third-largest innovation economy — but British savers are missing the returns.
His core claim: UK scale-ups raise more than 80% of their growth capital overseas, while the country’s £4.6tn pension and insurance pool barely participates. Of ~1,800 UK venture-backed companies with more than £20m in revenue, the Mansion House Group has invested in less than 1%.
The counter-example is Phoenix Court’s Solar scale-up pilot with M&G Catalyst — with credit to M&G and the British Business Bank as the only domestic allocators really writing growth-equity cheques at this stage. Solar has backed 18 companies across AI, auto, energy, fintech, compute, robotics, semis and travel (including Monzo, Motorway and Tide). Aggregate revenue: £5bn ; 14 companies above £100m ARR; 8,500+ high-value jobs (Monzo Cardiff, Motorway Brighton, Raspberry Pi Cambridge). Only 17% of investors in those scale-up rounds were UK-based — returns largely flowing to DST, General Catalyst, SoftBank, Temasek and peers.
Klein’s ask: Mansion House allocators should join M&G and BBB in backing Britain, so growth in every postcode also compounds for British savers.
Read more: CityAM
