Business News Round Up (17/09/2024)
UK spinouts secure over £1 billion in H1 2024
Annual spinout investment has quadrupled in 10 years rising from £514 million in 2014 to an estimated £2.3 billion in 2024. A report published from Parkwalk, the UK’s biggest investor in university spinouts, has revealed that UK spinout investment is showing signs of recovery following a challenging year in 2023. The report, Equity Investments into Spinouts, published in partnership with Beauhurst, reveals that spinouts have secured over £1 billion in funding during the first half of 2024. If this trend continues, investment for the full year is expected to exceed 2023 levels. Investments into university spinouts has been falling since 2021 after hitting a record high of £2.73 billion. In 2023, the sector attracted investment of £1.75 billion, down from the £2.38 billion invested during 2022, but the number of deals for spinouts has remained fairly stable between 2020 and 2023, with an average of 423 deals each year.
https://www.digit.fyi/uk-spinouts-secure-over-1-billion-in-h1-2024/
Scottish Income Tax: Mixed reactions from the business community
More than half of Scottish businesses (57%) have experienced little to no impact from the Scottish Government’s income tax policy, while 34% have felt the effects more sharply, according to the latest Fraser of Allander Institute’s Scottish Business Monitor (SBM) for Q2 2024. The survey, conducted in May, gathered responses from over 300 firms across various sectors of the Scottish economy. Against the backdrop of the Scottish Government’s income tax changes, the Institute asked a series of questions relating to firms’ views of the impact on their business. The findings show that 28% of firms reported no impact from the policy, while a similar proportion (29%) felt only “a little” impact. In contrast, 17% of respondents experienced a “fair amount” of impact, with another 17% stating that the policy had a “significant” effect on their operations.
Investment in Scottish women-powered businesses rises by 190%
Businesses founded, led or managed by women in Scotland now make up nearly a third (31.6%) of Scotland’s high-growth population. That’s according to the fourth-annual Top 200 Women-Powered Businesses report from JP Morgan Private Bank, which found that over the last decade, equity investment in women-powered businesses in Scotland has increased by 190%, from £51m in 2014 to £148m in 2023. Women-powered businesses received 26.1% of all equity investment in high-growth companies in Scotland last year. Looking at the number of equity investment deals completed in 2023, internet platforms (396), software-as-a-service (315) and analytics, insights and tools (303) were the top sectors for investment in women-powered businesses, making up 28.1%, 24% and 25.9% of the equity deals in these sectors respectively.
https://www.insider.co.uk/news/investment-scottish-women-powered-businesses-33677658
Economic inactivity due to sickness could reach 4.3m, report warns
The UK’s level of economic inactivity due to sickness could reach 4.3m by the end of this parliament, with an “unthinkable human and economic cost”, a health report has warned. A cross-party commission on health and prosperity, led by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), has published its findings on the future of Britain’s health policy. Experts including Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and former Tory health minister Lord James Bethell found the UK’s health crisis is linked to our faltering economy. The IPPR’s commission argues a generational rethink of health improvements could solve many of Britain’s urgent economic challenges, including low growth and productivity. It found there are some 2.8m people off work sick today, up by 900,000 on pre-pandemic levels, but that this figure could soar to 4.3m by the end of this parliament in 2029.