Written by Martin Coulter
LONDON (Reuters) – The British government is being urged to provide more support for the software industry with measures such as tax breaks and talent visas.
More than 120 industry leaders are calling for government intervention to improve conditions for software companies in Europe.
Europe has long struggled to scale its domestic tech companies as well as the U.S., forcing many startups to seek investment overseas as they scale up.
A new policy paper published by industry group Boardwave and seen by Reuters highlights Europe's “horrible” track record in expanding software companies, with one recent study finding that it ranks among the UK's top companies. It has been shown that there is only one company, Sage, which specializes in software. 100 listed companies (several dozen in the US)
Phil Robinson, the founder of Boardwave and a former executive at software giant Salesforce, shared the report with Britain's technology secretary Michelle Donnellan last week, calling it a hot start for big tech companies and venture investors. In comparison, mid-sized software companies have received little government attention, he warned.
A Department for Science and Technology spokesperson said it had secured billions of pounds of funding to help fund high-growth companies and encouraged UK investors to back the country's most promising scale-ups. .
A spokesperson told Reuters: “We disagree with this assessment. Our high-tech sector is growing rapidly and we outperform our European competitors in every aspect. We are consistently leading the continent. “We are in the lead, exceeding the level of France and Germany combined.”
Founded by Robinson in 2022, London-based Boardwave's 1,300-strong membership includes software founders, CEOs and other industry leaders representing nearly every country in Europe. Masu.
“A huge part of the technology ecosystem has been ignored,” Robinson said in an interview. “Software will underpin the digital economy of the future, but it has been ignored.”
Recommendations in the White Paper, a policy document setting out proposals for future legislation, include expanding the talent visa system to attract and retain workers from overseas and introducing larger tax credits for research and development spending. It is.
The report calls on governments to consider creating a continent-wide stock exchange, known as a “European Nasdaq.”
Founded in 1978, IRIS Software Group is the UK Government's largest third-party tax preparer and is used by 21,000 UK accounting practitioners. The company's CEO Elona Mortimer Zika told Reuters the government could do more to support these companies.
“The world in 10 years will be very different and we will watch that happen and decide whether we will let the US take the lead again or help a community of leaders grow from the UK and Europe. It’s one or the other,” she said. she said.
Other backers of the campaign include Rishi Khosla, CEO of SoftBank-backed OakNorth Bank, and investment firm Notion Capital, which has previously invested in start-ups such as British payments company GoCardless. Includes venture partner Adam Hale.
Mr Robinson said he had submitted a report to UK officials and was in talks with the French and German governments about how Boardwave could support the industry.
(Reporting by Martin Coulter; Editing by Ed Osmond)
