Tech City UK’s search for the “big hitters” of the start-up scene has begun for 2018

Future Fifty, Tech City UK’s search for the “big hitters” of the tech start-up scene, is now accepting applications for its 2018 programme.

The likes of Deliveroo, Bloom&Wild, TransferWise and Onfido are all part of the current cohort – with Zoopla, Just Eat, Skyscanner, Funding Circle and Farfetch making up part of the extended alumni.

Now five years old, Tech City UK claims that 101 “Future Fifty” companies have raised over $5.3bn of VC funding since joining the programme, with five alumni members seeing IPOs on the London Stock Exchange.

Having bagged over $1bn between them, said start-ups have been involved in 22 mergers and acquisitions, and collectively employed 27,000 people in 56 countries.

As part of the Future Fifty 2018 cohort, successful applicants will get to tackle a range of scaling challenges with other businesses at a similar stage, while learning from peers, and building a powerful network that’s able to influence government policy and inspire the next generation of tech entrepreneurs.

Previous advisors to the Future Fifty programme companies have included:

• Nick Beighton, CEO of ASOS
• Linda Main, head of capital markets for KPMG
• Robin Klein, general partner at Local Globe
• Paul Harrison, CFO at Just Eat
• Nezehat Gultekin, director at Temasek
• Christian Hernandez, managing partner at White Star Capital

Entrants must be a UK-headquartered digital company, and realistically need to have a revenue of £5m and be able to demonstrate 30% year-on-year growth over the last two years.

As successful applicants join the “Future Fifty family” for two years, new members will join some of last year’s participants, as well as the cohort of new businesses.

Richard Burrows, partner at Macfarlanes, said:

“Macfarlanes is hugely excited to be partnering with Tech City UK as the exclusive English law adviser to the Future Fifty initiative.

“The companies in the Future Fifty cohort will face a whole host of new legal challenges as they continue to scale up.

“In conjunction with Tech City UK we will help the Future Fifty companies to surmount these challenges and also provide guidance on a range of key issues as they progress through the programme.”

To find out more details, or to apply for Tech City UK’s Future Fifty, click here.

Applications for Future Fifty close on 10 January 2018, while an announcement on successful entrants will be made in March 2018.