Copyright cityam
Deliveroo and Darktrace have been named among the UK’s most successful tech exits in the latest ‘Founders Forum UK exit 50 report’, as the country faces ongoing challenges in retaining its high-growth firms. Founders Forum’s annual list, compiled with Tech Nation and HSBC Innovation Banking, ranks the 50 UK tech companies that have navigated scale-up to exit most successfully over the past 24 months. Together, these companies are valued at more than $33bn (£25.05bn) and have raised over $6bn, transforming tech sectors from AI and fintech, to enterprise software. Deliveroo and Darktrace are among the top ten, with their stories underlining a familiar tension of UK firms lured away from London by US investment. Deliveroo’s US exit London-headquartered Deliveroo agreed in May 2025 to be acquired by US delivery giant DoorDash as part of a £2.9bn deal. The transaction, valuing Deliveroo at around 180p per share brought an end to the food delivery firm’s four-year run on the London Stock Exchange, where it listed in 2021 in one of the most high-profile IPOs of the decade. Deliveroo’s IPO initially valued the business at £7.6bn but the company struggled to maintain investor confidence as share prices slumped more than 50 per cent post-listing. But its US rival DoorDash, which listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2020, saw its valuation surge – a gap that ultimately paved the way for the acquisition. Founder and chief executive Will Shu said in Founders Forum’s report: “When we look at the global landscape, there are a few consolidators out there…To invest in the business as much as we want to, we thought that would be better done through a larger entity”. Shu also reflected on the challenges of going public in the UK, adding: “I think there is zero question that the NASDAQ and the NYSE are just more liquid and larger exchanges than the LSE, but I would separate that from how you view the UK as a place to do business”. Deliveroo’s story, once hailed as a symbol of the UK’s tech ambitions, now stands as a cautionary tale about the difficulties of sustaining public market success in London. Darktrace’s $5.3bn takeover Cybersecurity giant Darktrace ranked just above Deliveroo in the UK Exit 50, following its dramatic move from public to private ownership. The Cambridge-based firm agreed to a $5.3bn (£4.25bn) takeover by US private equity group Thoma Bravo in April 2024, a deal completed in October that marked one of the year’s biggest UK tech buyouts. Darktrace had listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2021 at a valuation of £1.7bn, rapidly becoming one of the UK’s most celebrated AI success stories. But its share price struggled to keep pace with peers listed in the US, and the company ultimately found a higher valuation and greater flexibility outside the public market. Darktrace president Jill Popelka wrote in the report that the London market’s restrictions had also factored into the decision to delist: “It is different. There are limitations over how much equity you can provide an employee in a UK company when you’re regulated here in the UK. Those limitations don’t exist in the US, and so we have a lot more ability to share equity with our employees, which is nice.” The firm’s move to private ownership yet again echoed a wider exodus of London-listed tech firms to US investors, lured by higher valuations and looser regulatory frameworks. London’s listing challenge The struggles of Deliveroo and Darktrace on the public markets underscore a broader challenge for the London Stock Exchange. Of the 50 companies featured in Founders Forum’s report, 94 per cent exited via acquisition, and over half were bought by US-headquartered firms, compared to just 30 per cent by UK acquirers. What’s more, the combined value of these 50 exits exceeds $33bn, with more than $6bn raised between them. Despite recent reforms, analysts warn that this valuation gap between UK and US markets remains stubbornly wide. Charles Hall, head of research at Peel Hunt, recently told a capital markets summit: “There are a lot of companies that do want to IPO… we’ve got a list of 20 to 25 companies that would be brilliant IPOs for the UK. The challenge for us is keeping them in the UK.” He added that reforms to boost domestic capital must come ‘quickly’, warning that if firms like AstraZeneca or Revolut opt for the US, others will follow. Still, there are signs of optimism. New initiatives, from the Edinburgh Reforms to British Patient Capital’s £100m Cambridge innovation fund, are seeking to anchor high-growth firms in Britain. Yet as Baroness Stowell of the House of Lords warned: “Too often it’s a case of UK begins, and other countries cash in. That has to change.”
