Dear Chancellor,

We greatly appreciate the significant steps that you have taken to help British businesses
through the COVID-19 crisis. But as founders and CEOs of leading UK companies we are
concerned that unless urgent changes are made to the current schemes then the high-growth
UK tech sector will be put at risk.

As innovative companies we build technology and systems that transform sectors. For
customers, we drive costs down, standards up and for society we create whole new categories
of products and services. We are vital to productivity, clean growth and UK exports.

But unfortunately, the COVID-19 lending schemes you have put in place benefit established
firms and do not help companies of the future such as ours.

The businesses we run serve millions of customers across the UK, and overseas. We are
stepping up to help the country at this difficult time by helping tens of thousands of small
businesses to continue operating, helping vulnerable customers get essential services and
using innovative technology to give the NHS better tools to tackle the pandemic.

The high-growth tech sector has introduced innovative new products that have improved the
lives of millions of customers in the UK and many more around the world. We have created
huge numbers of high skilled jobs and we export across the globe.

Our sector will be crucial to helping the UK economy bounce back quickly after the pandemic.
The UK tech community is a world class engine for innovation and growth, however, it has not
yet received Government support, unlike our competitors in France and Germany.

Our companies have all invested in technology and growth rather than short term profitability,
which means that we are currently unable to access the schemes which have been designed
with longer-established businesses in mind. The current schemes that you have put in place -
the Covid Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF), the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption
Loan Scheme (CLBILS) and the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) - are
not accessible to our businesses.

We are therefore writing to ask you to urgently set up a taskforce meeting of leading tech
businesses to work with you and your officials to find a way for high-growth tech
companies to be able to access the lending schemes you have already established or
new schemes if necessary.

As you said in your Budget speech earlier this year, to help Britain’s businesses lead the next
generation of high productivity industries, we need to invest in the technologies of the future.
The high-growth tech sector has a vital role to play in the future success of the UK economy,
and we urge you to work with us to ensure that it is helped through the crisis and that the UK is
still the best place in the world to build a tech company.

Ali Parsa, Babylon

Joanna Shields, BenevolentAI
Peter Smith, Blockchain
Hayden Wood, Bulb
Azmat Yusuf, Citymapper
Poppy Gustafsson​, Darktrace
Will Shu, Deliveroo
Marc Warner, Faculty
Stan Boland, Five AI
Hiroki Takeuchi, GoCardless
Nigel Toon, Graphcore
Herman Narula, Improbable