Britain has the largest technology ecosystem in Europe. And we systematically give away the companies we build.
Invested in Britain proposes the strategic architecture that last week's £500 million Sovereign AI Fund is trying to fit inside. Five pillars. 25 consultation questions. One generation to rebuild.
British startups raised £17.5 billion in venture capital in 2025, double Germany. Yet the average late-stage deal was $50 million; in America, $100 million. Over a fifth of UK founders plan to leave the country within 12 months.
The NSSIF proved the model: £1 in, £3.30 in private co-investment out. But £220 million of committed capital cannot shift system-level outcomes. We need to scale it by a factor of fifty.
The £500 million Sovereign AI Fund launched on 16 April is a welcome start. It is also a seed round, not a strategy. This paper proposes the permanent, cross-sector architecture inside which the AI Fund can fit.
Read the full section →Britain imports over 50% of its gas. In 2022, gas prices rose tenfold in months. A country that cannot power itself cannot defend itself, cannot feed itself, and cannot negotiate with credibility.
"Net zero" has become a partisan symbol. "Energy independence" polls above 70% across every demographic. The same policy instruments serve both objectives. This paper pursues them as national security.
UK offshore wind generated 87.1 TWh in 2024, 30% of electricity. 11 of 14 V2G charger certifications have failed. The running order is wind, solar, nuclear, and V2G — treated as infrastructure, not as climate policy.
Read the full section →UK food self-sufficiency has fallen from 78% in 1984 to 65% today. The food import bill is £66.9 billion. Britain has zero commercial agrivoltaic installations, despite world-leading research at Rothamsted and Reading.
The conventional response is more subsidy. The structural answer is to make farming more productive and profitable through technology Britain already has the capacity to build.
Precision agriculture consistently increases profitability by 18–22% per hectare while reducing input use by 15–30%. The barriers are not technological. They are financial and institutional.
Read the full section →UK universities produced 1,337 active spin-outs and attracted £2.6 billion in 2024. Yet 10 universities produce more than half of all spin-outs. The other 140+ institutions together produce the rest.
University equity stakes in UK spin-outs range from 8.8% to 43.9%. The US median is 10%. American investors routinely decline UK spin-outs on equity terms alone.
Technology Transfer Offices are staffed by scientists with commercialisation training, not by operators who have run companies. The gap is not in research. It is in translation.
Read the full section →Norway and the UK extracted comparable volumes of North Sea hydrocarbons. Norway saved its revenues. Britain spent them. A fund capitalised at £50bn in 1980 and compounded at NBIM's realised rate would today be worth £1.5 trillion.
The existing National Wealth Fund is a policy bank, not a wealth fund. Britain needs both: the NWF for deployed capital, a true sovereign fund for compounding principal.
Every major developed economy has a sovereign wealth instrument Britain lacks. The Santiago Principles provide the governance framework. The Norwegian fiscal rule provides the drawdown discipline. What we need is the architecture.
Read the full section →Green Papers exist to provoke debate, invite expert input, and build consensus. This document is not a finished policy programme. It is a starting point for one.
The 25 questions embedded across the five pillars are deliberate. They mark the places where reasonable people will disagree, where evidence is thin, and where design choices matter. Responses from industry, policymakers, academics, civil society, and the public are welcomed.
The consultation closes on 30 June 2026. Responses will be reviewed, summarised, and inform a subsequent White Paper published later in the year.
The Green Paper is a 39-page document covering the five pillars in detail, with a Data Appendix of 50+ statistics and sources. Downloadable as PDF.
No. The proposals are designed to be adoptable by any UK government. The NSSIF was launched by a Conservative administration. The Mansion House Accord was shaped across parties. The National Wealth Fund was announced by Labour and builds on Conservative antecedents.
The five pillars — technology, energy, food, skills, investment — are national interests that transcend electoral cycles. The 25-year lock-in proposed on the Sovereign Wealth Fund is designed precisely to survive changes of government.
The £500 million Sovereign AI Fund, launched on 16 April 2026, is a welcome first move. It covers artificial intelligence only, is time-limited in its initial capitalisation, and sits within the DSIT departmental envelope.
The Sovereign Technology Fund proposed in this paper is cross-sector (AI, energy tech, biotech, advanced manufacturing, agritech, quantum, space), permanent (established by Act of Parliament with gilt-funded capitalisation), and institutionally independent (exempt from Senior Civil Service pay scales, prohibited from ministerial direction of individual investments).
The AI Fund could be absorbed into the Sovereign Technology Fund at Phase 2, subject to OBR audit of Phase 1 performance.
The Phase 1 capitalisation is £10 billion through long-duration Sovereign Technology Gilts. Annual debt service at prevailing rates is approximately £500 million. The fund's expected investment returns, applying the British Business Bank's audited crowd-in and return ratios, exceed this by a substantial margin.
Phase 2 scaling is conditional on OBR-audited performance, so the taxpayer is not committed beyond what the fund itself can service. The net fiscal impact over the life of the gilts is expected to be positive.
The British Technology Retention Mechanism is a right of first refusal on foreign acquisitions above £500 million, not a prohibition. If a strategic buyer's offer cannot be matched by a UK alternative, the acquisition proceeds.
The mechanism parallels France's strategic acquisition review and the US CFIUS process. It is consistent with WTO obligations and the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement. It is not protectionism. It is parity with comparator nations.
Nigel Cannings is CEO of Researchmatic. He founded Intelligent Voice Ltd in 2005 and led its exit to Verint Systems in 2024. He is a named inventor on over a dozen patents in NLP, AI, and speech processing.
He sits on the NSaRC Executive Committee, is a JSaRC Industry Secondee at the Home Office (pro bono), and an Industrial Fellow at the University of East London. He is the author of The Displacement Dilemma.
This paper is published in a personal capacity. It reflects a decade of direct experience building and scaling UK technology companies, and a conviction that the gap between British innovation and British retention is closable but not by accident.
Email your response to [email protected] by 30 June 2026. There is no prescribed format. Responses can address one pillar, several, or all five. Short responses focused on a single point are as welcome as comprehensive ones.
If your organisation would prefer a confidential submission, please note that in your email. All responses will be acknowledged.
Yes. A summary of consultation responses will be published after the deadline closes on 30 June 2026. A revised paper incorporating the feedback will follow later in the year.
Short quotations with attribution are welcomed. For reproduction of substantial sections, or if you are considering adopting specific proposals in your own policy work, please email [email protected] first.
The paper is © 2026 Researchmatic Limited.