The UK government is putting its money where its mouth is on tech sovereignty. Through direct investment vehicles, Britain has taken stakes in three of its most promising startups: Kraken Technologies, Wayve, and Oxford Quantum Circuits, in a bid to keep them from decamping to foreign markets where funding has traditionally been easier to secure.
The deals on the table
The most concrete example of this strategy is Oxford Quantum Circuits. The quantum computing company closed a £260 million Series C funding round on June 3, 2026, with the British Business Bank committing £100 million of that total. That’s not a token gesture. It’s nearly 40% of the entire round.
That deal set a record as the largest private quantum funding round in Europe.
Wayve, the autonomous driving startup, has also been a beneficiary of government support. The company raised $1.2 billion in its Series D round back in February 2026, landing a valuation of $8.6 billion.
