🎙️ Upside #EP— IPOs, AI vs Doctors, London’s Trouble & The Internet’s Future

⏱️ 02:30 – Figma’s IPO & European Stakes

• Filing in NYC after failed Adobe acquisition
• $800M+ revenue, 91% margins, 132% NDR
• $5B Index Ventures payday
• Why this matters for Euro tech

⏱️ 08:50 – London’s IPO Disaster

• Worst first half in nearly 30 years: only $160M raised
• AstraZeneca flirting with a US listing
• Can London come back?
• 25+ years of decline traced to pension reform post-Maxwell scandal

⏱️ 14:10 – UK vs US Markets: Staggering Comparison

• US market cap: $60T vs UK: $3T
• Tech in FTSE 100: only 1%
• Apple alone = FTSE 100
• Institutional apathy + structural rot

⏱️ 18:00 – Pension Power & Mansion House Debate

• UK pension funds hold just 5% in UK equities
• £40B in annual tax breaks not translating into local investment
• Need for regulatory overhaul to unlock capital

⏱️ 22:00 – Fixing the Public Markets

• Public markets *should* be the exit path
• Without them, the entire private capital waterfall stalls
• Stagnation in public exits affects tax receipts, job creation, and the UK ecosystem

⏱️ 25:45 – European Equities Surge

• Biggest outperformance vs US stocks on record
• €46B inflows in 2025 vs €66B outflows in 2024
• Germany wakes up: €500B in infrastructure & defence spend
• Sustainable or a short-term Trump-driven rotation?

⏱️ 32:00 – UK Budget Black Hole

• £5B budget gap after Labour’s U-turn
• Highest tax burden since WWII
• Social care + NHS = nearly 50% of budget
• Stuck between tax pledges, borrowing risks, and spending pressures

⏱️ 41:00 – UK Future - 3-Paths

• Stasis: stealth taxes, zero reforms
• Further decline: shrinking influence
• Recovery: bold reforms in pensions, NHS tech, and civil service productivity
• What road will we take?

⏱️ 46:30 – EU AI Act: Incoming Train Wreck?

• Set for August rollout, but 44 major firms ask for pause
• Missed code-of-practice deadline - What do we do?
• Healthcare, finance, and SaaS startups at risk
• GDPR 2.0 on steroids?

⏱️ 52:45 – Can We Save the Open Web?

• Cloudflare’s bold move to gate AI scraping
• API-first monetisation and licensing models emerging

⏱️ 57:45 – AI vs Doctors

• Microsoft benchmark: AI got 80% of diagnoses right vs doctors’ 20%
• The end for doctors?
• Regulation, infrastructure, and explainability still big hurdles

⏱️ 01:05:00 – Deal of the Week: Portal Biotech

• $35M Series A led by Earlybird + NATO Innovation Fund
• Protein sequencing tech spun out of University of Groningen
• Hopes to be “the Illumina of proteins”
• A deeptech win for Europe