The numbers speak for themselves. The North is a rising tech powerhouse, with start-ups now worth a combined £75bn, generating over £7.50 in value for every pound of venture capital invested – outperforming London and the rest of the UK.
From Manchester’s booming AI ecosystem to Leeds’ fintech innovators and Newcastle’s digital pioneers, the North isn’t just keeping pace – it’s rewriting the rules.
Yet for all its ambition, a key question remains. Could the North be achieving even more?
Despite ‘world-class’ talent, groundbreaking start-ups, and thriving specialist hubs, systemic barriers – from funding gaps to infrastructure shortfalls – are still throttling growth.
READ MORE: How Northern tech is ‘grafting’ its way to the top with global ambitions
Too many scale-ups stall. Too many potential success stories slip South, or worse, overseas. And while policymakers are full of grandiose soundbites about “levelling up,” many Northern founders are still fighting for the support they deserve, especially when it comes to scaling their businesses to the next level.
That’s why Prolific North is launching GRAFT, our original hard-hitting investigative series that will spotlight the triumphs, tensions, and untapped opportunities across the North’s tech ecosystem. We’ll celebrate the disruptors defying the odds – and hold power to account when progress stalls.
Through investigative features, founder interviews, and razor-sharp analysis, we’ll dig into the real stories behind the data. And at our GRAFT event on 21 May, as part of our Digital City Festival, we’ll bring the debate to life with inspirational leaders confronting the challenges head-on.
Prolific North Consulting Editor Karl Holbrook said: “This isn’t just another tech series. It’s a rallying cry. The North has the talent, the ideas, and the graft. Now, it’s time to demand the future it deserves.
“Leading this charge is our deputy editor Rachael Hesno, whose deep roots in Northern tech, interviewing its ‘great and good’ for years, make her one of the definitive voices in this ecosystem.
“At a pivotal moment, as AI and other technologies promise to reshape the global tech landscape, Prolific North is proud to be the flagbearer for Northern innovation. Our mission is simple…to ensure Northern graft gets the platform and the opportunities it needs to thrive not just locally, but on the world stage.”
A snapshot of Northern tech
As a snapshot of what’s happening, over in South Yorkshire the tech landscape is accelerating with its value growing by more than 700% in the last decade. More widely across the North, the combined value of tech start-ups in the region was £3bn in 2024 according to a new Dealroom report.
Although start-ups in London and the South may have received the lion’s share of venture capital in 2024, regions across the North are making significant gains as start-ups in Manchester received $386M while those in Newcastle secured $109M last year.
READ MORE: Manchester fintech raises £5.7m Series A round to take on global payment providers
It all appears to be positive but what’s really going on behind the statistics? It’s not an entirely rosy picture.
UK scale-ups are reporting major growth rates with an average annual revenue increase of 43% over the past three years, according to a recent Sage survey In partnership with Strand.
But in the North, where are those scaling businesses? For the founder behind Northern tech unicorn Matillion, there is a “start-up mentality” not just in the North but across the UK, and the lack of ambition is “worrying”.
As you’ll discover during this upcoming GRAFT series, there are plenty of conflicting views across the North’s tech landscape and not everyone agrees.
“The North doesn’t lack ambition or talent,” the leader at a Northern venture capital firm hits back. “In a capital downturn, our ability to build things with less resources is an essential skill. However, we’re still a fairly new ecosystem and with that comes some growing pains, particularly when going from start-up to scale-up.”
When it comes to a “lack of ambition” the executive chairman behind another leading VC fund explains it may be that some funding is “too focused on capital efficiency – ‘don’t spend too much, spend wisely, don’t run out’ – rather than scaling aggressively.”
READ MORE: Yorkshire AI tech start-up secures £250k to tackle one of hospitality’s biggest headaches
That journey from start-up to scale-up is a real concern for some leaders. A number of entrepreneurs have opened up to us about the need for the UK government and regional mayors or government leaders to back UK tech scale-ups through better access to growth capital, stronger talent pipelines, and improved infrastructure and connectivity.
According to a recent poll by techUK and Public First, 62% of 150 tech leaders surveyed identified Manchester as the top city outside of London that is the most supportive of the sector’s growth (62%) alongside Liverpool (37%).
Some entrepreneurs do believe the North is the ideal place to scale their business. An AI founder we’ve chatted to as part of this series has revealed she is eyeing a Manchester move by the end of 2025 to scale her business thanks to the support of an accelerator.
Recent data from Funding Circle through its 2025 Start Up Ambition Report finds that entrepreneurs ‘should’ consider cities like Brighton, Oxford, Manchester and Liverpool as growing entrepreneurial hubs with strong new business opportunities.
READ MORE: Manchester’s SiSU health tech lands £1.25m from Praetura for lifesaving rollout
In the North West, 32,940 new businesses were registered in 2024, with Funding Circle identifying the region as the ‘strongest business hub’ outside of the South. Yet the North East registered the second-lowest total in the country at 8,745 businesses.
But there are stark warnings from other entrepreneurs about the lure of the US too when it comes to opportunities and investment. It leaves a pressing question: how do we keep Northern tech businesses to grow, scale, thrive and reinvest here in the UK?
“We recently were approached by a launchpad in Denver and they offered us such a great opportunity,” says one female founder. “In my heart, we would be a Northern business that’s founded and invested in here but ultimately, the US is making it more attractive.”
Yet the marketing director at one major VC explains: “Many businesses we’ve backed build in the North and then expand to the US, we should be encouraging founders to grow from the North.”
READ MORE: Manchester’s Vypr secures £5m to supercharge global expansion and AI innovation
Another investment manager explains that the North’s tech ecosystem “hasn’t been nurtured as well as it should have been over the past eight to 10 years”.
We’ll be delving into this and much more as part of GRAFT, where we’re not just telling stories, we’re starting conversations.
So from the realities of scaling a business in the North to connectivity woes and everything in between, expect plenty of success stories, hard-hitting interviews, plus analysis to address the critical issues raised by founders across the region and the opportunities to fuel Northern tech.
How to get involved
If you’re a founder, investor, or stakeholder in the North’s tech ecosystem, Prolific North’s editorial team wants to hear from you. Be part of the conversation and help us to explore what it really takes to build, invest in, and scale a tech company in the North and help us hold decision-makers to account.
Email [email protected] and [email protected] for more information. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be covering plenty of topics in the lead up to Digital City Festival week on 20 May where these conversations and much more will take place at the GRAFT event. Find out more here.
