Balderton Capital: UK will soon have its first £100bn company

The United Kingdom has yet to produce a technology company worth £100 billion. James Wise of Balderton Capital believes this could change in the coming years — with one condition: the government and investors must act as allies, not as parallel worlds.

Who Is Speaking and Why It Matters

Wise holds a rare dual position. As a general partner at Balderton Capital — one of Europe's largest venture capital funds with a portfolio of over 200 companies, including Revolut, Depop, and GoCardless — he sees the market situation from the inside. At the same time, he heads the Sovereign AI fund, which the British government created to systematically participate in the race for artificial intelligence leadership. This combination makes his assessment balanced: he speaks neither as a lobbyist nor as a government official, but as someone working on both sides. Wise made his statement at London Tech Week — the UK's premier annual technology industry forum.

Where the Growth Chain Breaks

According to Wise, British companies know how to grow to a certain point, but then stumble at the transition to global scale. Series A and B are not the problem. The problem begins at the stage of aggressive expansion into the US, Asia, and continental Europe markets, when fundamentally different volumes of capital and different types of support are needed. The key barriers that Wise identifies:

• Shortage of large institutional capital within the country — British pension funds have historically invested little in technology
• Lack of government tools for the scaling stage (Series C and above)
• Risk of successful companies fleeing: many list on Nasdaq or relocate headquarters to the US
• Regulatory uncertainty in the AI sector restrains strategic decisions
• Lack of coordination between government programs and the actual needs of investors

For comparison: Germany and France have already created targeted mechanisms — government guarantees, co-investment instruments, and preferential structures — that allow them to retain technology "champions" within the country.

What the Sovereign AI Fund Must Do

The Sovereign AI Fund under Wise's leadership is meant to be exactly such a coordination point: bringing together private capital with government resources, reducing investor risks at later stages, and creating conditions where companies can scale without leaving.

"We are already close.

This is not a question of decades — this is a question of the next few years," Wise told Bloomberg.

He did not name specific candidates for the role of Britain's first "centillionaire" company. However, it is clear that several major fintech companies and AI startups that have grown with support from funds like Balderton are already moving in the right direction by valuation metrics.

What This Means

London has long positioned itself as Europe's technology capital, but has not yet backed this status with a company valued at three-digit billions in pounds. If the UK does not create systemic infrastructure to support scaling right now, the next "centillionaire" with European roots will likely be traded in dollars on an American stock exchange.