UK Startup?

[Dean Collins]

New start-up visa announced by the UK Home Secretary

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-start-up-visa-route-announced-by-the-home-secretary

 

 

 

Cheers,

Dean

 

[drllau]

Back in pre-Imperial days, Britain used to be disparanged as a country of shop-keepers (mercantile / trade cf aristocracy) but most people forget that all big business starts off as small business. I think the grass-roots are strong ... I was having lunch at library cafe and overhead a bunch of (immigrants from their accent) discussing forming a business ... and this wasn't even google campus or anything special. There's a lot of good foundations, the infrastructure is decent, public transport ubiquitous suited for 24x7 global city and the investment scene is strong with traditional AIM and now ICO (though latter still more popular in legislative favorable jurisdictions). If you want to do a crypto-currency startup, the usual trick is to have one leg in a strong currency zone (NY/London) a decent dev-team in low-cost location (east Europe/India) and ability to develop customer relationships through global networking (hub city). As such London fits the bill compared with say Luxembourg or Mumbai ....

The biggest downside is the high cost of rent and general living ... (hence dev-teams not necessarily in same country) and the shortage of technical talent. Bacause of the banking scene most IT professionals have stable jobs for MNCs or big brands and thus difficult to persuade ... no skill mobility like Silicon Valley. The high expenses will run through funding quickly ....  and despite what they say about ICO, it is still a regulatory hurdle. On the other hand, because of the pool of service personnel, you can get things done very quickly ... a major bonus for anyone from India or continental Europe. Pre-Brexit, I would have suggested a legal entity in UK and commuting from say Spain where you can e-tourist your dev team in a large rental apartment  (there are cheap flights like 50 pounds) and enjoy sunshine and decent food ... (ye ol' fish & chips does NOT count).

Lawrence

PS ... If anyone is interested, I'm in London waiting for a visa renewal so I can help people set up legal entity so they only need to pop in for the final signature. Note that to open a bank account, the anti-money laundering laws would suggest having a (bare) majority of directors as local residents with proximate physical address otherwise it will be painful doing transactions.