As Prolific North’s original investigative series GRAFT launches today, shining a spotlight on the triumphs, tensions, and untapped opportunities across the North’s tech ecosystem, Jess Jackson, PraeSeed Lead at Praetura Ventures, has penned this insightful piece with a glimpse into the state of Northern tech right now.
Ask anyone in the UK where the best place is to start a business, and there’s a decent chance they’ll say Manchester, Leeds, Lancaster, or Liverpool. And they’d have a point — these cities are becoming the blueprint for what a healthy, modern tech ecosystem looks like.
From our vantage point at Praetura Ventures, we’re seeing the North’s start-up scene evolve from a nascent ecosystem to something a lot more structured. Through our five funds (GMC Life Sciences Fund, NPIFII, EIS, VCT, Regional Angels Programme), we’re lucky enough to see a real snapshot of the landscape.
Programmes point to progress
The health of an ecosystem can easily be measured by the upsurge in accelerators and incubators. If these are popping up at an increased frequency, within or alongside co-working spaces in a city or town, then it’s probably because there’s a healthy startup scene, significant public funding, decent investment activity, or a combination of all these.
And there’s plenty of evidence to back that up. Specialist programmes like Alderley Park, DiSH and TIC are creating focused tracks for start-ups who specialise in a specific area. Meanwhile, the generalists– like Exchange, Baltic Ventures and the NatWest accelerator – are still doing the heavy lifting on getting founders investment-ready. The fact we’ve got both types thriving says a lot about where we are now compared to five years ago.
Then there’s the rise of corporate accelerators like ZEBOX, helping earlier-stage businesses plug into the bigger end of town. It’s a bit like the fintech accelerator model – helping founders navigate all the red tape and procurement headaches that usually put them off working with corporates in the first place. This is particularly exciting as they tend to go after much bigger (and more lucrative) problems.
The barriers to building early products are also lower than ever too. With no-code tools, a founder can spin up a prototype for a couple hundred quid and some late nights, instead of needing £10k and a dev team. That’s opened the door for a wider pool of entrepreneurs to test and validate ideas properly. Preseed founders are developing more sophisticated products faster and at an earlier stage than ever, and we can see that evidenced in our PraeSeed pipeline.
Bringing forward experts who can execute
That said, domain expertise still counts. One of the North’s strengths right now is how many people with deep sector knowledge are joining the dots — whether it’s ex-founders, academics, or people who’ve been around the block in regulated industries. The North has long been known for its willingness to ‘graft’ and that’s really shining through. Creating, building, shipping, and commercialising new ideas based on real world experience is a blueprint we’re seeing repeated regularly now in the ecosystem.
We’ve also seen some tangible progress from local councils and property stakeholders in transforming new destinations into incubators or start-up hubs. There’s now a genuine network of places where founders can get cracking.
And the events calendar is wild — there’s something going on every night of the week. The result? More external investors and founders are getting drawn into the region’s ecosystem and sticking around. Ten years ago, that wasn’t the case. A shameless shout out to the likes of Prolific North, Manchester Digital, TechUK, Bionow, FinTech North, FhundeD, Tech Climbers, Leeds Digital, ClimbUK, DTX, Connected North, Health Innovation Manchester, Liverpool Slush’d, GMCA, UKBAA, and KPMG for driving this forward.
It’s not perfect. The quality of advice can still be hit and miss depending on where you are and who you bump into. But the noise is dying down a bit, and more founders are asking the right questions — especially around how to raise capital, build sustainable models and keep burn in check. A founder’s ability to discern the source of the advice they’re receiving is underrated skill!
Angel activity is definitely up, and if M&A starts to kick back into gear this year, we’d expect that side of the market to get even livelier. Manchester Angels, Fhunded Angels, York Angels, UKBAA, Lifted and other networks have had a real impact, especially with some of the angel education programmes.
Grafting our way to becoming global
There’s also been a mindset shift. A few years ago, it was all about growth-at-all-costs. Now, more founders are balancing ambition with a clear-eyed view on cash runway and fundamentals. It’s very easy to become distracted as a founder. The best founders set a handful of strategic objectives and focus the entire business on achieving them. And the more exciting thing? They’re not just measuring themselves against who’s doing well in Leeds or Manchester — they’re benchmarking against the best globally.
A number of scale-ups have also been pointing to an old but still very real advantage of being based in the North — it’s cheaper. Yes, everyone knows that. But in today’s climate of cost inflation and global volatility, it’s no longer just our benefit — it’s starting to feel like other cities’ problem.
Companies in London or the West Coast are still locked into inflated salary bands while trying to compete on price with businesses that simply have a leaner cost base. Several founders we’ve spoken to recently see ‘fair wages’ driven by a better standard of living as a real secret weapon — something that gives them an edge not just nationally, but globally. It’s an underrated part of the Northern playbook, and one we’d do well to protect.
A few key sectors remain leaders for the region, but we’re backing founders across HealthTech, ClimateTech, PropertyTech, AdTech, Retail, Leisure, FinTech, Cyber, Consumer, Advanced Materials and beyond. The North’s got range — and more importantly, it’s got depth too.
We’re also starting to develop a robust talent pool for the industry’s favourite technology, AI. However, with the rise of GenAI, we’ve also entered the era of every pitch deck claiming to be an AI company — even when they’re clearly not.
AI has changed the way we build products forever, and if you’re not exploring how to use it to make your product smarter, faster or leaner, you might fall behind. But if you’re putting “AI” on your slide just to tick a hype box, be warned: investors are getting AI-fatigued. Most investors now know the difference between genuine innovation and someone using an AI bolt-on.
Beyond this, we are creating some genuinely ground-breaking technology here. Our challenge now is to ensure we see it through to and help it reach its global potential and reap the rewards commercially so these skills and resources can be reinvested back into the system.
Maintaining momentum
Data from Dealroom suggests that for every £1 of VC money invested since 2010, the North of England has produced 7.5x in enterprise value, ahead of the UK and London averages (6.4x and 5.4x respectively). This isn’t just a nice stat for a pitch deck. It’s proof that founders here know how to deliver real value, often with less fanfare and less capital.
It’s cheaper to build from the North despite the talent being on par with much more expensive regions. The momentum is real — but keeping it going means rolling up our sleeves. We need more investors spending proper time in the region, more backers who understand the nuances of building outside the South East, and more support for the next wave of founders building something even bigger.
