红杉资本撤离伦敦，英国风投追逐AI天才

On Monday morning, a hundred people crowded into a shared office space in East London to attend a meet-and-greet hosted by Metal.

The event title itself was a question: "Is the venture capital firm you have your heart set on also interested in you?"

The host was Sameer Nusrat, a manager at Metal, a platform that specializes in matching entrepreneurs with investors.

Such a scene is not unusual in today's Britain, because money is pouring into startups here at a record pace.

Since the start of this year, more than $26 billion has been invested in British startups, a record high.

But since 2023, the total value of UK venture capital deals has been rising all the way, while the number of deals has been decreasing year by year.

In other words, there is more money, but fewer companies are able to get it.

In the first half of this year, more than 70% of UK venture capital funding went to AI companies.

And the concentration is severe: eighteen deals alone accounted for about 60% of the UK's total venture capital amount.

All other companies are dividing up what remains.

James Wise of Balderton Capital says AI has made analyzing a startup much simpler.

He says research that used to take a whole day can now be done in minutes.

Ineffable Intelligence, co-founded by former DeepMind researcher David Silver, raised $1.1 billion in its seed round.

According to reports, this is the largest seed round financing in Europe to date.

In contrast to this money is the first round of equity investment that university spinout companies receive.

In the first half of this year, first-round funding invested in such companies fell by 68.3% compared with the same period last year.

Only forty-four university spinouts completed their first financing.

Revolut founder Nick Storonsky called venture capital "cheerleaders," and then started his own fund, QuantumLight.

Saul Klein of Phoenix Court put it more directly: venture capital must become more useful to entrepreneurs, otherwise it will be their turn to be cast aside.

On November 4th, Sequoia Capital announced it was closing its London office and shifting its focus back to Silicon Valley.

An internal memo was blunt: "We really don't see the need to have a local presence."

So capital has begun chasing a small group of star founders, whom some call "AI Adonises."

Among the sought-after names is Isomorphic Labs, the latest company from Demis Hassabis.

There is also Nscale, led by Josh Payne, backed by Nvidia's Jensen Huang and former Meta executive Sheryl Sandberg.

Even more telling is Steven Richardson, a former detective from Merseyside who switched mid-career to artificial intelligence.

His new company's website has just one word on it: "INVESTIGATE."

With just that one word, plus his track record of founding and selling Riven, the company's valuation reached $400 million.

Thirty-five-year-old Chad Edwards calls himself a "craft-beer nerd"; this is already his second billion-dollar company.

His Cusp AI plans to use artificial intelligence to find new materials, and its investors include Jeff Bezos.

Deals are fewer and fewer, individual checks are bigger and bigger, and Sequoia Capital closing its London office is the latest point on this curve.

The money is still there, but the door to that money is narrowing.