I got an optimistic glimpse of a potential better future for Britain, with a probable change of government imminent, when I met with Saul Klein, a leading venture capitalist. His firm, Phoenix Court, is located behind Kings Cross railway station, at the heart of one of the lowest-income neighbourhoods in the city, in the parliamentary constituency of the likely next prime minister, Keir Starmer.
Klein points out that this neighbourhood has massive potential to drive economic growth. It has an abundance of human and intellectual capital, with the The British Library, the vast #biotech activity of the The Francis Crick Institute, University College London, and leading global tech companies such as #AI pioneer Google DeepMind all within a minute or two of each other. And it is right next to the Eurostar rail terminal.
The area is shaping up to be London's "new Square Mile", says Klein, at the heart of what he likes to call the "New Palo Alto", a cross-border area also including innovation hubs in places such as Cambridge, Manchester, Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris that he believes can one day rival its American counterpart as a place that births and grows world class companies.
At the same time, Klein's firm is taking its role as a neighbour seriously, through its foundation Phoenix Court Works. With 10% of the venture capitalist firm's profits, and 2% of its carried interest in its funds, this has already become a big supporter of many local non-profit groups that are helping to improve the quality of life for everyone living in the Somers Town area. (The picture shows Klein in a flourishing garden, on waste land between the British Library and Crick Institute, that has become popular with locals; it has been designed so that when building eventually starts, the different parts of the garden can be moved easily to other nearby locations.)
Visitors to the Phoenix Court headquarters, on the ground floor of a Council owned high-rise providing low-income housing, are handed a book of inspiring articles by many of the 35 local organisations supported by the foundation. In the foreword, the firm sets out its belief that "investment in innovation has a foundational role to play in creating not just economic, but critically, social value that is evenly distributed".
Personally, I love this kind of thinking, which among other things, contrasts favourably with the anti-social beliefs about innovation and indifference to the neighbours of so many "tech bro" venture capitalists. And while I should balance my enthusiasm with realism about how hard this it to do, seeing this particular Phoenix rising got me thinking: if the new government can embrace a similar creed of investing simultaneously in economic and social progress, perhaps it can defy those who forecast only grim times ahead for the country and start to build something better.
Fingers crossed.
