UKTIN’s Telecoms Investment Insight Report dissects the investment trends shaping the future of the telecoms industry. Supported by PitchBook, we have conducted a thorough analysis to unravel the complexities of venture capital in the telecoms market.
By scrutinising key trends in dealmaking and early-stage investments, the report uncovers the emerging technologies driving innovation in telecoms and connectivity, and spotlights the most promising avenues for growth.
UKTIN spoke to Simon Bond, UKTIN lead for Translation of Research Framework to learn more.
Please tell us about the Telecoms Investment Insight Report.
Since UKTIN’s launch, the network has been working with UK-based start-ups looking to create new products, services and solutions in telecoms. We’ve been helping to connect with the right investors, in order to increase their chances of investment success. This has given us great insight into telecoms investment in the UK, including its strengths and weaknesses. Readers can expect to find objective analysis and a historical perspective of how the ecosystem has developed. It also sets out some challenges the UKTIN community needs to address to achieve a flourishing ecosystem, which we all want to see going forward.
Why was the report needed?
Through working with these amazing start-ups, we’ve realised how little the telecoms investment landscape - rather than the broader tech landscape - has been analysed and understood. UKTIN has provided new telecom start-up businesses with workouts where innovations can be tested and challenged. The companies involved have learned a lot, but the workouts have also given the UKTIN team an insight into telco founders, and we want to better understand the ecosystem in which start-up funding exists. It is a system that is comprised of new ideas and talented entrepreneurs, as well as scale-ups. We commissioned this report to get a sense of the full ecosystem, from the act of start-up and what happens next: for example, how do scale-ups create wealth in the UK economy?
Were there any surprising or interesting findings?
The key takeaway is that the glass is definitely half full. There is a belief, a widely held perception, that telecoms is an unloved investment category. People think that the sector doesn’t attract investment. However, the report shows that if you look at investment in technologies that are enabling core networks, it is a very compelling category. Telecoms is buoyant: in semiconductors, photonics, and AI, to name a few.
What significance does this have for start-ups?
Start-ups hoping to enter the market should look at the report because it shows the investment opportunities that attract funding, and why investors choose to make those investments. It will help start-ups to position their opportunity, or the selling of their shares in their business, and show how investment can enable the company to access the market globally. It is an important read for telco start-ups as well as UKTIN members looking to foster this activity, communicating opportunities in the market that are so often misunderstood.
The report is available to UKTIN Innovation Platform users, and we’ve recently changed the small business support offered. Please can you tell us more about this?
We have been providing workshops for innovation and investment, and have recently transitioned to a blended learning model for these, to ensure they are more accessible. Training is now organised in a modular format, allowing founders to access support in their own time and in a hybrid environment. As a result, more start-ups will benefit from the expertise in the UKTIN ecosystem, which can only be a good thing.
The Telecoms Investment Insight Report is exclusively available to users of our Innovation Platform. If you’re not registered, you can do so here.
To delve into the content in the report, we are hosting a one-hour UKTIN Investment Insights webinar on the 6th June at 10am which will dissect the findings and include a panel discussion from active stakeholders across the telecoms investment ecosystem. You can register to attend here - you will need a profile on the UKTIN Innovation Platform to do this.
