Launching a fund used to be a real test of endurance, with timelines often stretching across many months. The process demanded patience that many ambitious founders found difficult to sustain.
The area was previously dubbed "London's scrapyard" by Sowmya Parthasarathy, urban designer at Arup who worked on the Olympic Park for more than a decade. The site was home to light industry, dominated by overhead powerlines, and was broken up by rivers, roads and railways.
At Koodos, we're building something fundamentally different. Our focus is on backing companies that genuinely improve people's lives, while helping investors access opportunities they wouldn't normally see.
The remote casino sector, which is industry jargon for online gaming, is the undisputed heavyweight champion of the market. It quietly overtook traditional sports betting a few years ago and hasn't looked back since.
The new Electronic Travel Authorisation charge, effective from April 8, imposes a £20 fee on overseas travelers entering the UK, which could dampen inbound travel volumes across key business hubs.
Revenue-based finance allows repayments to fluctuate with takings, offering businesses greater flexibility during quieter trading periods. This model is increasingly favored by high street businesses facing financial pressures.
Ongoing conflict in the Middle East continues to disrupt global markets and oil prices, adding a persistent layer of uncertainty for UK firms. This geopolitical instability is driving higher cost pressures and intensifying concerns around supply chains and energy security, all of which are critical factors in strategic business decision making.
But you know what rarely gets the same attention? The quieter discipline that actually protects wealth: how and when experienced investors exit. Exit strategy starts before you enter Smart money doesn't leave loudly. There are no viral posts or panic-driven sell-offs. Capital is adjusted gradually, exposure is refined, and risk is reduced long before headlines turn negative. By the time public sentiment shifts, the most disciplined investors are already positioned.
Last month I sat with the operations manager of a 40-person London firm and watched her spend an entire morning copying order data from one spreadsheet into another. She'd done this every Friday for two years. Nobody had questioned it because that's just how we do things. UK workers waste 11.3 billion hours a year on administrative tasks like emailing, scheduling, and data entry, according to research from Dropbox.
More than nine in 10 (91%) private business owners surveyed in London are confident about growth in 2026, according to KPMG's annual Private Enterprise Barometer, up 4 percentage points on the UK average of 87%. The annual survey captured the perspectives of 1,500 privately owned businesses, including 164 in London, from across various industries including professional services, finance, technology, industrial manufacturing and retail.
