Season 7, Post 39: Blue sky thinking needed
On a perfect autumn day last week*, 150 leading stakeholders within the UK cybersecurity ecosystem (and your author) gathered at a conference facility on the South Bank of the Thames to “help the UK build a thriving cyber community”. The event was organised by Alastair Paterson, the CEO and co-founder of Harmonic Security, whose business we profiled in a prior Blog post.
“We are getting outpaced and outcompeted” was the stark message shared by Alastair with the audience of government officials, start-up founders, investors and Chief Information Security Officers. Throughout the day regular comparisons were made between the tech/cyber ecosystems that exist in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, emphasising that the UK needs to “own its destiny” by building a comparable network that can foster both innovation and leading new businesses.
First consider why the UK may have historically struggled. “We’re too British” was one suggestion put forward. “Afraid to fail” was another cited, while a third suggestion – from an American participant – was that “we need to get more unhinged.” Greater risk-taking and more tenacity (this latter word was repeated regularly) need to be encouraged.
A more positive perspective might highlight that “we have all the ingredients [here] in the UK,” as one speaker observed. Consider the country’s strategic location between the US and Asia, its substantial cyber legacy (in both Alan Turing and GCHQ) and more recent tech success stories (particularly DeepMind). UK data engineers anecdotally cost 60% of the price of comparable Silicon Valley hires, we learned. The Government officials present asserted that they were seeking to develop a more “coherent” approach to enable ecosystem innovation while simultaneously seeking to “reduce barriers.”
We have argued since day-one that data have zero value unless secured, stored and analysed. Cyber is therefore only going to become more important, in our view, as our dependence on data grows. The advent of AI not only “speeds everything up” but will also “expose vulnerabilities” more visibly than in the past, in the words of one speaker. Now is the time to seize the moment. Practical suggestions include better storytelling and more aggressive go-to-market strategies from start-ups, building repeatable founder processes and hosting more networking events. Your author is excited about all these opportunities ahead.
14 October 2025
The above does not constitute investment advice and is the sole opinion of the author at the time of publication. Past performance is no guide to future performance and the value of investments and income from them can fall as well as rise.
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Alex Gunz, Fund Manager
*The photo taken by your author from the venue’s balcony acts as proof
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