Carlos Nasillo

Great press today highlighting our portfolio company Aveni as a standout UK AI challenger. The Times frames this as a “David vs Goliath” battle between plucky Brits and mega-funded US titans. It’s going to be very difficult for the UK to build a world-class foundational model; I suspect that ship has sailed. But that’s not the only way of winning. I was asked whilst being interviewed yesterday morning how we think about investing in a world where AI can replicate a product in a weekend. My answer was simple. Products can be copied. Leadership and organisational know-how are much more difficult to replicate. Understanding customers remains hard. Our thesis is that proprietary data and being highly embedded in daily workflows is essential (yawn…so far, so not at all revelatory). But what gets discussed less is that many of the most durable advantages remain organisational rather than technical. What about the relationships that allow you to understands what clients actually need? The behavioural processes which allow that knowledge to be incorporated into the product roadmap – but not whip-saw it to the needs to the dominant customer? The implementation know-how to get embedded in their workflows? The brand? The culture? The governance that allows a business to scale without losing sight of all these things? That's why we back teams with deep domain expertise who are targeting a clear and enduring issue and really understand their customers needs.  We then help them build governance and decision making structures that perpetuate that edge as they grow. The UK has a thriving tech scene, third only behind the US and China, and London remains Europe’s leading tech-hub. Trying to turn our plucky Brits into direct competitors of mega-funded US titans isn’t going to work – tyring to build great businesses will. https://lnkd.in/ecy3DcZC

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AI rules are changing—are you prepared? UK businesses face a fast-evolving landscape of AI regulation and compliance. From the ICO’s updated accountability framework to new data laws, the stakes for SMEs and mid-market firms have never been higher. Confused about what’s required, or what’s coming next? You’re not alone. Staying compliant isn’t just a legal necessity—it’s your competitive edge. Let’s talk about how your business can adapt confidently and ethically. Connect with me for the latest updates and practical guidance tailored to your sector.

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GPT-6 dropped overnight for those of us in the UK. It’s being billed as the AI that is more capable than ever of doing. GPT-6 Astra claims to use computers, navigate software, write and test code, conduct research and complete complex, multi-step workflows. All rather than simply telling you how to do them. This is a big deal. It changes the AI conversation from: “What can AI help me do?” to: “Which parts of my work can I delegate to AI?” For product teams, that’s a pretty fundamental shift. It's not about building the best AI model. It's time to rethink your products and processes around AI that can reason, act and execute. We’re truly moving from copilots → agents → digital workers. And GPT-6 feels like a massive step towards that world.

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I’ve just listened to a very interesting podcast featuring Shaya Feedman, co-founder at Deep Specter Research. Shaya was previously 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 at Porsche AG. Shaya Feedman talked about: - The email he sent to Jaguar Land Rover describing the suspicious cyber activity he and his team were detecting around JLR assets two months prior to the devastating cyber attack that stopped vehicle production for 5 weeks, and lead to the UK Government intervening to provide support. - The recent F5 hack (F5 provides hardware loan balancers and many other widely used infrastructure tools including nginx). - Attack vectors in vehicle security, and different mitigation approaches. Reem Sherman

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Is SEIS/EIS really helpful? Sifted reports that Startup Coalition is calling upon the government to make the SEIS / EIS schemes more broad and generous. While the UK startup ecosystem predominantly loves them, I personally think that SEIS/EIS are a disaster and need to be massively downscaled. Lavish tax breaks, on the surface, seem like a good way to kick-start an ecosystem and get the wheels moving. But in reality they have changed VC economics and made it feasible and profitable for early-stage funds to operate like private equity shops: aversion to risk, lack of ambition and often extortionate terms. Not all of them do yet it still seems like an exceedingly small number of SEIS/EIS funds do proper venture – forward-looking and outlier-focused. Recent studies into the UK productivity slowdown have identified that one of the reasons the UK is becoming less competitive is an overabundance of SMEs that don’t consolidate into fewer, larger, more efficient companies. Why fuel this dynamic further with a tax scheme that rewards fragmentation? Yes, if SEIS is downscaled, fewer companies will raise. But is that necessarily a bad thing?

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BREAKING: Some big news for UK science. Former Google DeepMind scientist and UCL Professor David Silver is reportedly raising $1bn for a London AI company called Ineffable Intelligence. Their mission? To work on creating superhuman intelligence. You can read more about it here; https://lnkd.in/es9ayZqV

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