Rainmakers Summit – delegates urged to embrace ambition by major funder
First reports from a great day of insights
Hello Rainmakers,
We have such a rich seam of content to mine following our superb Rainmakers Summit yesterday.
My colleague Ellie Hollinshead was taking notes while I was on my feet for most of the day, but we’d just like to share the first summary from a packed agenda, including some home truths from Duncan Johnson of Northern Gritstone.
Rainmakers subscribers get two unique pieces a week, but also full access to our back catalogue of investigations, scoops, and insights, including updates from fellow Rainmakers like this one, insights from The Secret Investor, interviews with entrepreneurs, and the leaders from VC and PE investors like Endless River Capital, Foresight, Mercia, Puma and WestBridge.
The Manchester rain didn’t dampen the mood of the UK corporate finance community who gathered at the Emirates Old Trafford yesterday for the Rainmakers Summit.
Keynotes by entrepreneurs, investors, economists and specialist advisers were all marked with a cautiously constructive theme, but there is a growing recognition that some of the barriers aren’t purely structural, they are also behavioural.
Duncan Johnson, CEO of Northern Gritstone, put numbers to a long-standing imbalance in the UK’s innovation economy.
He said: “In 2019, £1.2bn was invested into early-stage science and technology businesses, yet only £28m made it to the North of England – despite the region generating around 40% of the UK’s fundamental research.”
That share has since crept up to roughly 8%, which is progress, but still feels a bit like bringing a teaspoon to a swimming pool.
“The issue isn’t the science. On a per capita basis, the UK and particularly the North punches well above its weight. The challenge is what happens next. Turning research into scalable businesses requires talent, experience, and, crucially, ambition.” He continued.
On that last point, Johnson didn’t sugarcoat it. Too many founders, in his view, have historically aimed too low, raising enough capital to build a decent business, but not enough to build a globally competitive one.
“It’s less a funding gap and more an expectations gap,” he said. Increasingly, investors want businesses that are built to compete internationally from day one, not ones that quietly hope to “see how things go” and “maybe conquer Cheshire before lunch”.
That shift in mindset is starting to show up in deals. Capital is there, but it’s more selective and a bit less forgiving. Being “good” is no longer particularly interesting. Investors are looking for scale, speed, and a credible plan to survive in a world where AI is rapidly rewriting the rules, sometimes mid-pitch.
Policy is trying to help move things forward said Johnson. The Mansion House Accord, for example, is aimed at getting more money from pension funds into high-growth UK businesses. In simple terms, it’s about encouraging very large, very cautious pools of capital to take a bit more risk in private markets.
Delegates were also treated to an inside view on the negotiations to shape the Mansion House agreements from Sarah Adams, policy director of UK Private Capital.
We then moved into a thought-provoking panel on ‘Backing Regional Growth: LPs, Pensions and the Mansion House Compact’, with great insights from Sarah Adams (UK Private Capital), Paddy Dowdall (Greater Manchester Pension Fund), Dean Heaney (Mercia Asset Management PLC) and Veronica Humble (NatWest Cushon).
The morning wrapped up with a deep dive into ‘Investing in Tech’s New Era’. Starting with a fireside chat with Jesper With-Fogstrup, Group CEO of Moneypenny.
Followed by a panel featuring Alex Craven (The Data City), Steve Lydford (Codurance), Zandra Moore MBE (Zygens), and Neil Vose (EHE Venture Studio).
A clear theme throughout the morning: maintain a positive outlook.
It’s a meaningful step in the right direction. The UK has long been seen as underinvested, and pension funds are one of the few sources of capital big enough to make a real difference. But there is a fairly clear view across the market: you can encourage capital, but you can’t force it.
Investors will still back quality businesses, strong returns and a clear story. The reforms may help more money flow, but they don’t change what investors are willing to invest in.
Meanwhile, the broader backdrop isn’t exactly making life easier. As Simon Oates from PWC pointed out, “private capital is both a powerful engine for growth and highly sensitive to uncertainty, which is slightly unfortunate, given the current abundance of it.”
He added: “The UK has been underinvesting relative to its G7 peers for decades, to the tune of around 3-4% of GDP each year. That equates to roughly £100bn annually, or about £2 trillion over time. Not a rounding error. And that gap shows up everywhere: infrastructure, technology adoption, skills, and productivity.”
On top of that, there are more immediate headwinds. Geopolitical tensions are feeding into energy prices and supply chains, inflation remains unpredictable, and the cost of capital is structurally higher than it was in the “money was basically free” era. In that environment, capital doesn’t vanish, but it does become more cautious, more selective, and occasionally harder to coax into signing term sheets.
And yet, it’s not all doom and discounted valuations. Oates said: “Private equity and venture capital are playing an increasingly important role, not just providing funding, but bringing operational discipline, strategic clarity, and a willingness to back businesses through longer, messier growth journeys.”
Taken together, the UK investment picture is one of gradual alignment. The ingredients are there: strong research, improving regional ecosystems, and policy nudging capital in the right direction. The challenge is getting ambition, talent, and funding to operate at the same level and ideally at the same time.
When that happens, the upside is significant, said the panel, adding that when it doesn’t, the UK risks continuing its long-standing habit of inventing brilliant things and then watching someone else scale them. The mood, then, is not pessimistic but it is realistic. And perhaps just self-aware enough to admit that part of the problem might be in the mirror.
Thank you for subscribing to Rainmakers.
We believe in good journalism that is worthy of your support. Please share this edition of Rainmakers so we can grow the message further and wider.
The insights and commentary we share with you are rooted in the trust we have built in the business community.
We’re also on LinkedIn - please join our Rainmakers community group for updates and offers and opportunities to comment.
If you have something you think we should look at, then either reply to this newsletter or email michael.taylor@thebusinessdesk.com.