3 ways Brexit will affect young tech companies
Everyone is now a pundit, and nowhere more so than the legal blogosphere, where everyone has a view about the uncertainty the Brexit vote has wrought. But what of the tech community, where startups like CrowdJustice are building products that help link people together, in an often borderless way? Our three pundit points on how Brexit will affect those like us who are trying to create change, no matter how big or small.
- London as a hub for innovation. A rising tide lifts all ships, and London has become a force of innovative cross-fertilisation for all sorts of companies. At CrowdJustice we have learned and benefited from Jimmy at LegalGeek, Srin at Accomable, Dan at Farewill — the list goes on. But if I were starting something up today, especially a company that needs access to the common market, I’d think hard about doing so in London. That will have consequences even for those startup companies who stay in London, and who thrive from the atmosphere of shared learnings.
- Talent. Finding developers is hard. As innovative and creative ways of solving problems has fuelled a rise in startup companies in London, the supply of engineers simply can’t match demand. The consequence is a lot of talent coming in from Europe (including, in our case, a brilliant young French developer). Sponsoring visas is typically outside the remit of a young company and tech talent in the UK isn’t yet mature enough to feed the rising tide of creativity and innovation.
- Regulation. Lots of startups come to London, get regulated by say, the FCA, and then have passported rights to work in regulated industries across Europe. Needing to get regulated in multiple countries — with the multiple legal fees and complexity that entails — in order to create a product that works in the eurozone will be a huge disincentive to start a company anywhere but the eurozone. I’d expect that young companies disrupting the banking sector will be particularly hard hit — or will simply relocate.
So what next? Like everyone, we’re holding our breath for what might happen next. In the legal field, the growth of the startup industry has led to nascent cross-disciplinary collaborations (between engineers, designers and lawyers) that fuel positive change in a profession that can’t address the untapped need of so many clients. We hope that that continues, however the politics unfold. In the meantime, we’re fascinated to watch what happens with Jolyon Maugham’s attempt to seek legal clarity on the big constitutional questions Brexit raises.
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