By Charles Breese, Managing Director of Larpent Newton and Co Ltd.
The timing of being invited to write this article is perfect, coinciding as it does with a) the huge uncertainty which 2016 thus far has presented to investors (resulting in the frequently heard question ‘what do I do with my money?’) and b) last week’s sale of Swiftkey [https://swiftkey.com/en] for $250m to Microsoft Corporation (NYSE:MSFT). The company was founded in 2008 by two people in their 20s to develop predictive keyboards driven by artificial intelligence – its technology is embedded in over 300m devices worldwide – this success was achieved with total investment of $20m. Octopus Investments (in which I am a shareholder) was one of the investors in Swiftkey.
The reason for mentioning Swiftkey is that it is illustrative of some of my key beliefs, namely a) the UK has an above average capability for developing step change innovation, b) as the successes start to come through, the pool of people in the UK capable of successfully commercialising step change innovation is growing (thereby starting to address the UK’s longstanding record of top flight science but poor commercialisation), and c) large corporates are generally weak at developing step change innovation and need to access it by buying it. This creates a wonderful backdrop for the patient investor – it is also very satisfying to contribute to companies which have successfully created world beating products, create fulfilling employment and are net exporters – it means that I have suitable retorts for my children when they observe that my generation has delivered a very feeble economy for their generation to sort out!
