Concerns of an entrepreneurial ambition deficit in the U.K. have led some venture capitalists to question the role of risk-averse parents and a costly education system in disenfranchising young British people from becoming founders.
Last month, U.K. Business Secretary Peter Kyle said university students in Britain don’t have the same ambition to start their own businesses when compared with their peers in America.
“In Britain, if you went to a group of undergraduates, how big would that group have to be before you found someone that said their choice of going to university… was because they wanted to become a founder?” Kyle said at an event hosted by AI chipmaker Nvidia in London.
“The entrepreneurialism simply isn’t there – the drive, the vigour,” Kyle added.
Harry Stebbings, the founder of 20VC, a firm managing $650 million in funds, said one of the main barriers young people in the U.K. face when trying to get into entrepreneurship is their parents.
