Expert Predictions For Startup Trends In 2026

UK startups kept investors interested through 2025, even as money flows became much tighter. Data from Tracxn shows UK tech firms raised £11.7 billion across the year. That total was 9% lower than the year before, though the cash went into fewer deals.

SIIT reports that investors generally preferred later rounds. Series A and B deals got attention, and was usually linked to revenue ready software and applied AI. Smaller early rounds became less common.

New business creation stayed high as NatWest data shows 5.63 million active companies in the UK by the end of 2024. Business Demography records 89,515 new firms in the first quarter of 2025, up 36.49% on the same period a year earlier.

These numbers show a startup market that keeps producing new firms even as funding choices grow tighter.
 

Where Did Investors Put Their Money?

 
AI got the largest share of venture money. SIIT reports AI took around 30% of UK venture funding in the first half of 2025. This trend carried into the final quarter.

Runware raised £38 million in a Series A round led by Dawn Capital, according to SIIT. The company builds media focused AI tools that cut computing delays and costs. Investors backed the idea that backend systems can scale globally.

Solve Intelligence secured £35 million in Series B funding. Its software speeds up patent analysis for legal teams. SIIT links this deal to demand for AI tools that support professional services and earn fees early.

Qargo raised £24.6 million to grow its transport management software. Matta collected £11 million at seed stage for camera led manufacturing checks. Both deals show money flowing into AI used in physical operations.
 

What Does This Say About Survival And Risk?

 
Limelight Digital reports around 90% of startups fail. Startups data shows 42% close after misreading market demand and 29% run out of cash.

Profit figures stay tough as Small Biz Trends reports only 40% of startups make money, with 33% breaking even and 33% losing cash.

The UK counts 48 unicorns, PitchBook figures show. That places the country behind the US and China. The data displays a scene where money exists, success stays rare and careful execution makes the difference for startups… But what does 2026 have in store? Experts share their thoughts…
 

Our Experts:

 

• Zak Hemraj, CEO & Co-Founder, Loopio
• Bhaskar Majumdar, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures
• Abhishek Chopra, Founder and CEO, BosonQ Psi (BQP)
• Chris Rodgers, CEO & Founder, CSP Agency
• Nick Valla, Co-founder and CEO, ShiftUp
• Andy Zenkevich, Founder & CEO, Epiic
• Joe R. Faris, President and CEO, Accountalent
• Wayne Elsey, Founder, Funds2Orgs
• Roman Rylko, CTO, Pynest
• Paige Arnof-Fenn, Founder & CEO, Mavens & Moguls
• Deni Darenberg, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, dogAdvisor
• Shanna Bynes Bradford LME, MA, CR, CEO/Aromatherapy Chemist Formulator, Grow Out Oils
• Karina Tymchenko, Founder, Brandualist
• Seva Ustinov, Founder & CEO, Elly Analytics
• Rich Stivala, CEO and Founder, worldwideRiches Web Design and SEO
• Adam Bushell, Founder and Director, AB Electrical & Communications

 

Zak Hemraj, CEO & Co-Founder, Loopio

 

 

“In 2026, many teams will feel a new kind of pressure: not just to adopt AI, but to use it to absorb more work without adding headcount. Proposal and RFP teams are a clear example. They are being asked to move faster on long, detailed documents, and leadership increasingly expects AI to be part of the solution. That expectation is also shaping how performance is measured.

“As seniority rises, there is often a stronger assumption that AI can handle more of the proposal workflow. In 2025, we discovered that 73% of VPs said that they have considered replacing people resources with AI, while only 18% of Managers said the same. Now there’s a growing gap between what executives believe AI can replace and what mid-level managers see as realistic.

“If this gap persists, the likely outcome is not just uneven adoption, but fatigue. Teams will be asked to deliver more output while also learning new tools and managing risk, which can increase burnout even when AI is intended to reduce it.”

 

Bhaskar Majumdar, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures

 

 

“2026 will be the year capital moves from hype to hard infrastructure, reshaping how nations compete and how individuals live.

1. Investment in AI and AI infrastructure of cloud storage and power
2.⁠ ⁠⁠Investment in defence tech in all countries, even in Nato countries, as defence spending has increased. More in technology, including cybersecurity rather than traditional warfare
3.⁠ ⁠⁠Progress in longevity sciences as the world thrives to live longer, healthier, and the use of technology in these areas is seeing commercialisation.”
.

Abhishek Chopra, Founder and CEO, BosonQ Psi (BQP)

 

 

1: The “Simulation Gap” Gets Measured and Weaponised
“2026 will mark the first time defense programs start quantifying the “simulation gap,” the strategic cost of outdated modeling tools measured in lost innovation cycles, fuel waste, and readiness delays. As adversaries adopt quantum-enhanced simulation, the gap itself becomes a national security KPI.”

2: Digital Engineering Becomes a Geopolitical Moat
“By 2026, nations leading in digital engineering standards, modular data architectures, and quantum-ready simulation platforms will hold a decisive advantage in aerospace innovation. The U.S. has a narrow window to set the rules of digital dominance, or risk falling behind China’s coordinated ecosystem.”

 

Chris Rodgers, CEO & Founder, CSP Agency

 

 

“AI wrapper startups will mostly implode in 2026, unless they’re actually infrastructure and their UI is just how they happen to expose their unique workflow. The great implosion in 2026 will mostly be of AI startups that made the mistake of trying to build wrappers, meaning frontends for OpenAI’s or Anthropic’s APIs that didn’t own any infrastructure. Many of these so-called products are literally just a user input shot into an LLM via API and the response pasted into a nice UI. They can be cloned easily.

“I’d estimate 90% of the AI-powered tools I’ve seen could be cloned by a junior developer in a day with chat.openai.com, Stripe, and off the shelf UI components for less than $10. There’s no IP in prompt engineering! No backend! No moat! When I review portfolios of failed startups or get called in to triage a failing AI product, I can almost predict the equation in advance: per request costs causing thin margins + paid user acquisition + zero switching costs. We see it happening right now in the real world with startups like Copy.ai and Notably that scaled really fast on the back of OpenAI in 2023-2025 but then died when they realised competitors included this for free and there was nothing stopping users from swapping.

“Founders who were in a hurry to generate revenues in 2023-2025 could make a living being distribution arms for OpenAI, burning investor money on user acquisition to subsidise their business, but when funding dries up in 2026 most of those arms will fall off. Some startups will be left standing. Those that own rails. Startups building workflow engines or memory or developer APIs or integrations that aren’t just a single user interface wrapping an LLM API call will be fine. Action item for founders: can you imagine your startup dying tomorrow and customers not even noticing? If you can’t, you don’t own infrastructure. In 2026, infrastructure is where it’s at, and the only startups left in business will be the ones that are literally the ground beneath customers’ feet, because they’ll be impossible to switch out.”

 

Nick Valla, Co-founder and CEO, ShiftUp

 

 

“2026 will be the year B2B companies finally stop chasing revenue and start creating it. We’ve spent a decade building ‘signal detection’ tools that alert sales teams after buyers are already deep into their journey—essentially showing up late to their own opportunities. The next wave of successful startups won’t just analyse intent data faster; they’ll predict buying windows months before traditional signals appear.

“The real shift is from reactive workflows to autonomous intelligence. Right now, most sales and marketing teams are still playing defense—responding to inbound, scoring leads after they’ve engaged, and competing in the same overcrowded moments as everyone else. The startups that will define 2026 are building AI that identifies the conditions that precede buying behavior, not just the behavior itself.

“For founders, this means the ‘AI-powered’ label is now table stakes. The differentiation lies in autonomy: how much configuration does your product require? How much human babysitting? The winners will be platforms that deliver value on day one without requiring months of setup, integrations, and training. Complexity used to signal sophistication. Now it’s just a liability.”

 

Andy Zenkevich, Founder & CEO, Epiic

 

 

AI-native startups as the center of the startup ecosystem
“One of the most groundbreaking startup trends that will define 2026 is the rise of truly AI-native startups or businesses designed from the ground up around the use of artificial intelligence as a principal operational and value-creating factor, not merely an add-on feature. In 2025, more than half of global VC capital went to AI-led investments, changing the startup ecosystem’s dynamics and the way founders, talents, and capital agglomerate.

“These companies don’t only offer point-solution products. They develop entire workflows and businesses where AI leads, and the productivity benefits are already evident. For example, my team had the chance to work with a medtech company that deploys multi-agent AI to automate more than 80% of complicated paperwork and billing processes, cutting the average time spent on each by at least 40 minutes and increasing dollar-accurate revenue capture by 15% points.

“In the longer term, these companies are becoming the foundations of their communities and ecosystems.

“To capitalise on this trend, my tip for new founders is to not merely use AI to automate workflows and improve operational efficiency but also design human-centric systems that allow them to leverage and scale human talent and intelligence. The top-performing companies my team and I have assisted all share one commonality: while leveraging AI to unlock automation benefits, they are also relentless about pairing it with a human-centric approach that optimises the synergy between AI and humans. They redesign work to ensure the best benefit of introducing AI tech can be realised by upskilling the workforce to use these tools properly and rethinking work leveraging AI so people can use it as a ‘co-pilot’ instead of a ‘replacement.’ These companies invest in human-AI interaction design and increased digital literacy for workers to ensure higher adoption and better outcomes.”

 

Joe R. Faris, President and CEO, Accountalent

 

 

“Founders are beginning to opt towards single-purpose finance stacks in 2026. In the past, a platform would attempt to cover all aspects of a business’ workflows. Today, founders want platforms that are extremely narrow and will allow them to complete one task with virtually zero human input. For example, during R&D credit studies, I am seeing teams want a tool that will capture the engineering time spent on projects, apply the IRS rules related to those projects, produce the necessary support documents, etc., with minimal to no interview cycles. One seed-stage company reduced its preparation time from 12 hours down to 1 hour and 30 minutes after it replaced a comprehensive accounting package with a focused R&D credit package.

“As a result, teams are operating with fewer people and tighter burn controls and the amount of complexity that they experience directly correlates with cost. A three-person startup, for example, cannot afford to maintain a platform that has twenty unused features. Therefore, the start-up needs direct paths to move data cleanly and eliminate confusion. As a result, startup tools in 2026 will be successful if they are able to complete a single financial action clearly and give founders results they can use immediately.”
 

 

Wayne Elsey, Founder, Funds2Orgs

 

 

“One trend I am CERTAIN startups will continue to embrace is the focus on sustainability. We already know that consumers increasingly value sustainability, as a solid majority (62 percent, according to a 2023 survey conducted by TheRoundup say they “always or often” buy sustainable products. The same survey found that 78 percent of consumers feel that sustainability is, generally, “important.”

“We now know that investors, without whom most startups would not last long, are starting to hop on the sustainability trend. PricewaterhouseCoopers recently conducted a massive survey of investors and found that solid majorities would be willing to increase financial backing for companies undertaking climate-positive actions.

“Investors are keen on actions like implementing closed-loop and green-friendly supply chains, developing products or services that help consumers combat the effects of climate change, and harnessing renewable energy. PwC’s survey also indicated that most investors would prioritise eco-friendly processes over short-term financial gains.

“Consumers’ demand for environmentally conscious products and services has opened investors’ eyes to the importance of climate change and the threat it poses to our planet’s long-term stability.

“I’ve seen the increased enthusiasm for keeping gently worn, used and new shoes out of landfills through the work of my social enterprise, Funds2Orgs. Funds2Orgs collects gently worn, used and new shoes donated by individuals, retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers to send to micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries. Selling these donated shoes at nominal markups helps these micro-entrepreneurs build stable incomes and lift their local economies.

“Since 2013, donors have become more excited about contributing to the reuse economy, which reduces waste and keeps synthetic materials out of landfills. Our organisation has prevented an estimated 37 million shoes from being thrown away and, instead, given the products a new life to individuals across the globe.”

 

Roman Rylko, CTO, Pynest

 

 

“Throughout 2025, most startups were moving toward developing assistants and generative features, but in 2026, in my opinion, the most profitable direction will be startups working on the “dirty kitchen” of AI.

“As a company that builds both platforms and data engineering for clients, at Pynest we’re already running into the same problems:
– where and how to store prompts and responses securely,
– how to transparently log model decisions and grant permissions,
– how to explain to regulators why an automated decision was made this way,
– how to avoid burning through budget on inference.

“I expect that in 2026 we’ll see more startups emerging at the intersection of AI, DevTools, and security/compliance that solve these problems out of the box. It’s not as flashy as yet another chatbot, but these are the kinds of products that will underpin every serious fintech, insurance, and healthcare service.”

 

Paige Arnof-Fenn, Founder & CEO, Mavens & Moguls

 

 

“I started a global branding and digital marketing firm 24 years ago after working at 3 different tech startups as the head of marketing, all had positive exits. There is no question that Generative AI will continue to speed up work processes and enable people without technical expertise in a specific area to explore possibilities and that soft skills such as communication, empathy, and leadership will bring a human element to the more technical aspects of work for startups in 2026. In addition they will adopt skills-based hiring practices to find candidates with the right skills for a job, regardless of their degrees or other credentials.

“Brand partnerships/co-branding opportunities will increase to offer customers unique experiences that enhance brand image for brands that share similar values, target markets, or business objectives without directly competing for customers. They will partner with large, well-known brands as well as micro-influencers to gain access to smaller niche markets. By partnering with a complementary brand they will offer new products, services, or events, cross-promote on different marketing channels, offer exclusive content, integrate technologies, or launch a cause-related marketing campaign.

“I also predict startups will offer more personalised experiences to customers at every touchpoint that will drive repeat purchases and customer loyalty. With a strong customer segmentation process and the use of CRM tools startups will create experiences that resonate deeply with customers and appeal to their unique tastes, needs, and preferences.”

 

Deni Darenberg, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, dogAdvisor

 

 

1. AI startups will be fully centered on AI Safety
“2026 will be the year where AI safety becomes a product feature. Startups that will win will be able to prove their AI behaves predictably under stress, refuses dangerous requests, and follows clear internal rules. Investors will treat safety frameworks the same way they treat cybersecurity certifications: if you don’t have them, you won’t be taken seriously.

2. Commerce will get a huge overhaul
“More companies like OpenAI and Google will lean into AI shopping (ie with ChatGPT Shopping) and consumers will move from browsing to simply asking “What should I buy”? It means startups selling physical goods must optimise for AI recommendation engines and not just for Google search. The era of generic DTC brands will likely end as AI modes (like Gemini on Google Search) will likely filter them out.

“Brands like Stitch Fix and Shopify AI pilots show 30-50% uplift in click-through and purchase intent when an AI predicts products at a more individual level.

3. Founder Identity matters more than ever
“The strongest 2026 startups will be built around founders who are clearly, visibly, experts in their space. Audiences increasingly want to know who is behind a product and whether they genuinely understand the problem they are solving – this is the opposite of the old faceless brand era. People want credibility not choreography.

4. Marketing and anti-AI marketing
“Consumers will increasingly reject AI-generated captions and companies. Startups that prioritise genuine human engagement and storytelling will stand out. We see this with micro-influencers and authentic video content that consistently beats polished ads on TikTok and other socials.

5. SEO is going to change enormously
“Search is no longer just Google. Gemini and chatGPT search are advancing massively, and with Gemini popping up before you even get any search results, startups need to design for AI ingestion.

6. Subscription fatigue
“People are getting tired of endless subscriptions. Startups that win in 2026 will offer flexible or one-off payment instead of locking people in a recurring plan. Startups like Calm offering one-off courses alongside subscriptions and data from Zuora’s Economy Index show users want freedom and not lock-ins.

7. Human-Led AI Collaboration is what will make startups successful
“By 2026, startups that blend AI and humans will dominate and use the tool to amplify human creativity and judgement – rather than fully automating AI. Healthcare startups like PathAI (who combine clinical expertise with AI diagnostics) outperform fully automate AI companies like Jasper labs.”

 

Shanna Bynes Bradford LME, MA, CR, CEO/Aromatherapy Chemist Formulator, Grow Out Oils

 

 

“With Medical Aesthetic in-office treatments and procedures is a growing industry that has so many upcoming trends more Al predictive patient outcome and post opt personalised care treatment protocols and digital powered imaging, recovery duration time and treatment recommendation. Al recommendation vitamin nitric oxide supplementation for anti-aging, longevity and pre/post care treatment for skin improvement and to speed up the healing process and time duration.”

 

Karina Tymchenko, Founder, Brandualist

 

 

“By 2026, instead of focusing on scaling (i.e., growing), startups are expected to be focusing on profitable growth (i.e., making money) from the very first day of their business. I’m already seeing many early-stage startup founders dial back their large-scale advertising and invest in a smart brand system that allows them to build trust quickly, while also using AI to power the backend of their businesses; the brand messaging will come from the human side (storytelling). The leanest, fastest-growing startups will continue to dominate their niches as long as they use a combination of automated operational processes and personalised brand-driven marketing strategies to create loyalty among their customers.”

 

Seva Ustinov, Founder & CEO of Elly Analytics

 

 

“In my opinion, the biggest startup trend of 2026 is the shift from using AI tools to becoming AI-first.

“Between 2023 and 2025, most teams ran isolated AI experiments — marketing, product, and ops teams had their own workflows. That approach boosted individual productivity but did nothing for collective intelligence. In 2025, the winners started moving from scattered ChatGPT chats to a unified AI operating layer, where agents could read the full company context, execute workflows end-to-end, and transfer knowledge across teams 24/7.

“The real breakthrough happened when the AI agent got full access to real operational data — that’s when managers could start letting the agent take real actions, not just generate suggestions. Such a transition at Elly Analytics resulted in 10,000 hours saved yearly for a team of 30, avoiding a least three support hires within 8-12 weeks, and decision-making speed that simply hadn’t been achievable before.

“In 2026, this won’t be a competitive advantage anymore, it will become basic hygiene for startups. And within two years, every company will be AI-first — the only question is who leads the shift and who ends up catching up.”

 

Rich Stivala, CEO and Founder, worldwideRiches Web Design and SEO

 

 

“By 2026, Google will no longer dominate search the way it has for the past two decades. The rise of AI-native browsers and answer engines, such as Perplexity Comet, is changing how users discover information, delivering direct answers instead of traditional search results.

“As a result, organic SEO traffic will become less predictable, and companies relying solely on rankings will see diminished returns. At the same time, Google Ads will remain one of the few reliable traffic sources, driving increased competition and significantly higher costs per click.

“Startups that win in 2026 will reduce dependency on Google alone while getting smarter and more precise with Google Ads, focusing on tighter targeting, better conversion optimisation, and higher-intent campaigns — and investing in authority, brand trust, and visibility across AI-driven discovery platforms, not just traditional search.”

 

Adam Bushell, Founder and Director of AB Electrical & Communications

 

 

“In 2026, startups will revolve around products that will cut on the physical labour of the trades and building operators. There is still a high demand of systems that do away with manual monitoring. Companies which provide simple hardware with a simple software will grow more quickly than those that are based on software only.

“Electricians and building managers desire equipment that reduces the number of faults, but does not have a lengthy setup process, which means that gadgets that can be installed in less than two hours or have fewer than five calibration actions will win. Homes will also experience a boom in micro energy systems, with customers demanding equipment that will reduce quarterly bills by at least 15‛ without significant building work. There is a great potential of growth of businesses, which package small commercial automation tools as monthly services with prices of less than 100 dollars because the packages fit the tradespeople with numerous sites.

“This kind of trend brings out the products that save time that was wasted as well as the ones that give direct savings.”