These 58 UK tech startups could soon be unicorns

A group backed by a team that wants to support the UK's most promising high-growth technology companies has invited 58 tech startups to be part of an elite club.

Silicon Valley Comes To the UK (SVC2UK), an organisation set up by LinkedIn cofounder Reed Hoffman, former LinkedIn VP of corporate strategy Ellen Levy, and LoveFilm investor Sherry Coutu, chose the companies based on their potential to grow into huge tech corporations.

The "Scale Up Club," designed to encourage "high-impact entrepreneurship," is for companies that could hit £100 million in revenue in the next three to five years.

The companies in the 2015 intake span a variety of industries, from artificial intelligence and drones, to flower delivery services and consumer hardware.

Newcomers that were added include computer building kit provider Kano, on demand cleaning service Hassle and micro computer developer Raspberry Pi.

Between the 58 companies, they generate £300 million in revenue each year and employ 3,100 people, SVC2UK said, adding that they're growing at 110% a year.

The new club members were announced at an event held at the London Stock Exchange today, and they will receive mentoring from successful people in the global technology industry, including TomTom cofounder Corinne Goddijn-Vigreux and Catherine Mohr, VP of medical research at Intuitive Surgical.

Previous Scale Up Club alumni such as TransferWise and SkyScanner are now valued at over $1 billion (£660 million) and it's hoped that the latest intake of companies will follow a similar path.

These high valuations have been made possible off the back of venture capital money pouring into UK companies.

Research from London & Partners, the Mayor of London's inward investment agency, reveals that the UK has attracted more VC investment from Silicon Valley based investors than any other major European country over the last five years having completed 290 deals, worth a combined total of around $4.2 billion (£3 billion).

London-based technology companies attracted almost half (45%) of all deals into the UK from Silicon Valley, totalling $1.9 billion, more than Paris, Madrid and Amsterdam combined.

Janet Coyle, Director SVC2UK at London & Partners said: "This year's Scale Up Club includes some of the UK's fastest growing digital businesses and provides further proof that we can produce companies of genuine scale."

UK still lacks a $100 billion tech company

While the scale of some of the UK's tech startups isn't to be sniffed at, it's worth noting that the UK is yet to create a company that's anywhere near the same size as the likes of Google, Apple, Amazon or Facebook. In other words, the UK may have plenty of unicorns but where are its mega-unicorns?

Coutu, who sits on a several boards including LinkedIn's board of advisors and the board of the London Stock Exchange, has been calling on the UK government to do more to support the nation's fastest growing technology companies if it wants to create technology corporations with valuations in excess of $100 billion.

One area she's been focusing on is immigration, as she strongly believes that UK tech companies need to be able to hire anyone from anywhere in the world.

Full list of companies in the Scale Up Club. The 58 companies that were added today appear in the left-hand column.