Dinner is Served: Investment Predictions for 2024

Climate change is no longer an existential threat for the decades ahead – it’s evidenced in the geopolitical realities we face today.

As we witnessed during COP28, some of the largest oil producers would not make commitments which specifically referenced the reduction of fossil fuels. And yet, the negative impact of continued fossil-fuel-driven climate change is undeniable – countries across the globe are facing water shortages, high levels of air pollution, financial poverty, loss of biodiversity and insufficient food security.

As a result, we’re facing crises of both environmental and human health. And it won’t stop there unless we focus on making drastic changes in one particular industry: food.

We must create sustainable food systems and work towards ensuring global food security, by disrupting and exploiting the innovation opportunities within the industry.

You can be patient with science, but we should never be patient with capital.

The UK government is planning to invest over £20 billion per annum on R&D, which is amazing. But less than £1 billion of that will be placed into commercially driven seed investment, bringing with it the risk that pure science will be emphasised at the expense of applied development and commercialisation. And as we’ve already discussed, the latter is critical if we’re to make serious progress in tackling climate change.

The UK has long played a game of patience and it’s time to change course – as we’ve seen before, overly patient capital comes with its own set of risks including founder fatigue and capital flight. That’s where UKI2S, the fund we manage for the Government, comes in; they inject that much needed commercial discipline into the development and expansion of science, to push it towards successful, impactful commercialisation.

2024, despite the still cautious market, could this be “The Year of Ambitious Growth?”

Thus far, the government and taxpayers have been funding venture and innovation in Britain. In our management of UKI2S, we want to build on what the British have already invested, by attracting private sector capital and foreign direct investment from sovereign funds.

With 45% of Britain’s GDP spent by the government and the nation’s brightest civil service recruits, it’s time to replicate that in the private sector. An essential component of our management of UKI2S is knowledge transfer – taking the very best ideas and tech from the government and its agencies to create high value, commercially successful companies – sharing is caring.