Jo Wright

Following the budget full of tax increases, a timely reminder that UK taxpayers still get generous tax rebates by investing in SEIS/EIS qualifying companies like WONA - The future of entertainment. Wona has built a MVP and we are working towards a full launch in Q1 next year. Try out the prototype here: https://wona.digital/ Among the benefits of SEIS are: 1/ Individuals who subscribe for shares in a SEIS qualifying company will receive tax relief of 50% on the cost of the shares, which is offset against the individual's Income Tax liability for the year in which the investment is made. 2/ If the SEIS investment makes a loss, an individual will also be able to offset the capital loss against income. If you would like more information, please drop me a message. Cavet: I'd prefer lower, flat taxes, but this is the world we live in! We still welcome international investors and we have a number.

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There once was a business that was quite keen, On tax savings, naturally, that weren’t always seen, Benefits in kind, an approach so wunderbar Give Numbers Knowhow, a once over https://lnkd.in/e4-qDQrD Keep your finances clean. https://lnkd.in/eSTx3WuG

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Mentorship is a two-way street. Supporting Jack has taught me as much as it’s helped him grow. This young man is destined for greatness—mark my words. But let me ask you this: what does success truly mean? Someone once told me, "If you live your life ensuring someone else’s is okay, your own life will always be okay." That wisdom stuck with me. To me, success isn’t just about personal achievements; it’s about creating a ripple effect—helping others grow and, in turn, growing yourself. Bringing Jack on board hasn’t just been about teaching him; it’s reminded me of the value of small, consistent efforts. It’s the basics that often create the biggest shifts. One of the first lessons I shared with Jack was the importance of eye contact and a firm handshake—those seemingly small actions that leave a lasting impression. From there, we’ve focused on habits that build character and momentum: reading daily, journaling, and embracing the power of 1% improvements. These aren’t just tasks; they’re foundational to creating massive change over time. It’s been incredible to see how these principles are already shaping Jack’s approach to life and work. In a world often overshadowed by negativity, why not choose kindness? Why not strive to make an impact, knowing it can create a chain reaction of positivity and growth? Jack’s enthusiasm and willingness to learn have inspired fresh ideas within my team, and he’s a living example of why investing in people is so worthwhile. Jack, keep your mind open, your work ethic relentless, and your heart kind. Most importantly, embrace failure—it’s a stepping stone to the greatest lessons. Fail fast, learn faster, and never stop growing. I’m incredibly proud to have you on this journey, and I can’t wait to see what we’ll achieve together. Success isn’t just about the destination; it’s about the journey—and the people you bring along for the ride. And together, we’re proving that lifting others up is one of the truest measures of success.

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Here we go again, another Jaguar rebrand post, but here’s my perspective. It seems like every time a company rolls out a rebrand, the initial reaction is outrage. I get it. People hated it when #Instagram ditched its old-school brown camera logo for the modern, sleek, flat design. Back then, comments like “It’s lost all its soul!” or “This is so basic!” were everywhere. But let’s be real: could you imagine anyone willingly using Instagram today with that clunky old logo? People resist change; it’s human nature. But here’s the thing, rebrands, especially at the scale of companies like Jaguar, often aren’t about today. They’re about tomorrow. It’s about future-proofing a brand for what’s ahead. We might not like it at first, but these shifts often make more sense with time. It reminds me of a quote Steve Jobs famously loved: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” That’s what these brands are doing, they’re looking ahead. For Jaguar, the move makes perfect sense. They’re pivoting toward full electrification of their range, and this rebrand aligns perfectly with that vision. It’s sleek, modern, and a far cry from the dated, slightly twee aesthetic they’re leaving behind. It reflects their evolution, not just as a car manufacturer, but as a forward-thinking, future-oriented company. Honestly? I think the new logo and direction are way cooler. If I were in the market for a Jaguar, I’d be much more inclined to buy one under this new brand identity than the old one. It feels fresh, bold, and in tune with where the world is heading. That’s the power of good branding, it changes perception, ignites excitement, and gets people on board with what’s next.

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If you have creative in house, this works for execution and rollout (i.e. you need volume and speed that only a finely tuned production engine can provide). If you can do the grunt work in house or campaigns are more targeted needing fewer assets then we're equally strong at creative ideation and advanced creative production such as games, tools, 3D, world-class motion graphics (i.e. you need more creativity and depth your team can't provide). It's turning the dials you need around creativity, depth, volume and speed to make a unique combination that helps you do more with less internal resource. We play both of those roles well!

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💲 Yesterday, I had the absolute privilege of attending a session regarding a Roadmap to Wall Street and heard about the momentum for listings in NY this year. There were some brilliant speakers including Richard Tyrell (CEO) and Piers Morgan (CFO not the other one) as well as Tracy Cheung. This year is shaping up to have numerous IPO istings. 🤔 This made me think about an article I read by Will Hutton about the struggles in the UK. Having worked as a senior finance person for many US listed companies, a year at uni in the US and having been to quite a few places around the US - there is a different mindset and we need to have some of this thinking over here. There has been investment in infrastructure and not upto 90% price rises in our water bills where the dividends have gone abroad. I remember when I was at AKQA, one of the founders at Snapchat came to the office having turned down a multibillion dollar offer from FB (as it was at the time). I do admit though the Roadshow sounds like my idea of hell. 🤷‍♂️ We do need to do things differently as successive governments have overseen anaemic growth. We don't want to have another Liz Truss situation but we do need some disruption. 🔫 This week we have started the run-up to the general election. As Richard Huntington has mentioned, times are tough but the middle class is also struggling now (looking forward to finding out the details). We have the talent and the potential capital but it is not being used in the right way. 🔎 Earlier this year I talked about using Nudge theory to shape the government action we want. AI has some great potential though it is currently causing some disruption both legally and financially. I do read with concern regarding the lack of diversity on the OpenAI board and the reasons some of their people are leaving. In the UK, Companies House remains a great place to check Board diversity and therefore diversity of thinking for growth. 🛒 I was also reading Richard Lims' analysis of M&S and how leadership has helped it's turnaround despite an extremely tough envirmonment (as the Mar and Apr retail data shows). The high street regeneration could help and there is great potential such as the IRL scheme for teenagers proposed by Cheryl Calverley. I would love some of this leadership to be shown in government but also in sectors that I am familiar such as Marcoms and Tech. 🤲 So let us stop the fraud and corruption, invest in our growth, enable people to have the basic ability to live and focus on what brings us together rather than divides us. Finchley trialled a universal basic income but it has also seen it all in terms of abandoned youth and middle east protests over the last few days and I have basically walked past both (sadly).

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The grim outlook of Rachel Reeves' budget is really stealing the spotlight. With two and a half months still to go, the "incredibly tough choices" the chancellor is grappling with are beginning to surface—and the picture isn't pretty. The recent data indicating that the UK economy grew by 0.6% between April and June has sparked speculation that this might positively impact public finances, potentially enabling Reeves to ease some of the strain in her October budget. The OBR is anticipated to revise its full-year growth forecast, currently at 0.8%, in its upcoming assessment for the October budget. At the moment there seems to be no clear direction in terms of actions in the budget that would impact on the sector, although there are still questions regarding what will happen to the current Business Rates relief and the subsequent impact of NLW on businesses...

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My followers don’t need me to spell out the key points in the budget for private markets. Nor am I a tax expert but here is my literal 2 cents. 1. They managed our expectations well and we all know we were going to be “hit” and in places like CGT and Carry they could of bigger hits (but let’s wait for 2026 when further reform is coming!). It keeps the UK as borderline competitive but that is it. 2. The chancellor did make it harder for smaller businesses and especially I feel for growth companies with NI and managing staff expectations for pay increases. Felt in places like was telling us investment is key but also making it that much harder for companies and their investors. Yes, pensions have more scope to diversify into riskier assets but will smaller VC see that £? Yes, EIS and VCT is given a reprieve form sunset clause, but made it harder for their managers. Moreover, Entrepreneurial relief and IHT got major hits. So many have said I wouldnt want to be starting a SME right now, which is sad.

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Some great thoughts from Ben Foster on how not to do Shared media! "At The Kite Factory we talk a lot about Owned, Earned, Shared and Paid. Often the least explored area is “Shared” which covers corporate and commercial partnerships which can often be an extension of sponsorships. When it is done well these sorts of collaborations don’t only help both parties but create a big splash, Spotify are past masters with great examples alongside Uber & Starbucks. However, as with every marketing strategy success is all down to execution and I have just experienced a 101 on how not to deliver a successful partnership. I was lucky enough to attend the Olympic Games in Paris where Visa are a headline partner. Once inside an Olympic venue you were unable to use any cards except Visa, this isn’t new. However, unlike London 2012, when I queued at several large foot outlets with 5 checkouts 4 were Visa only with no queues and 1 was cash with a huge queue. If you wanted to use another card, tough, find a cash machine. I saw countless examples of food being left on counters by angry customers due to the lack of any signage. Some outlets were Visa only, didn’t accept cash at all so as a non-Visa customer you couldn’t buy their products, funnily enough none of those stalls had queues. I didn’t even choose to be a non-Visa customer, my bank made that partnership decision, but now all I and many others will feel for Visa is resentment. Why are they using this platform to create negative experiences and perceptions for non-customers? Is the upside for Visa customers really enough to offset this? Frank Cooper III, the CMO of Visa said, “Visa believes that it has the opportunity through our sponsorship to add value to the fan experience” and added “As the top payments brand in the world, we seek to remove friction from transactions”. Even more ironically one of the core reasons for the partnerships is aligned values of inclusivity! Reality is that Visa pay enough to dictate the rules of the game and the Olympic Committee have consistently shown their prioritisation of profit with the removal of all concession tickets, I paid the same for myself my 4-year-old and my 75 year old father in law to attend events. By devaluing the spectator experience, the games in turn will become devalued in a crowded entertainment market. It’s time for the likes of Visa and The Olympic Committee to look to the future rather than sacrificing their morals for a fast buck."

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Meet the Founder: Alex Latham of Chip – Your wealth app. THE UK’S FASTEST GROWING STARTUP Alex spent the first few years of his career working in a variety of different roles across the music industry and some early stage startups.   He then co-founded Chip in 2016 and is currently its Chief Marketing Officer, looking after growth, marketing and design. Chip has been on an insane trajectory recently, as its 2023 results highlight: 🚀 £15.1m annual revenue 🚀 800% YoY revenue growth 🚀 £3.2m of net losses (down 75% YoY) Since the end of 2023 Chip has continued to see crazy growth. Here are the highlights from H1 2024: 🚀 £1.8m monthly revenue, up from £1.2m in January (£22m ARR) 🚀 274k active customers, up from 218k On a year-over-year basis Chip grew almost 800% in 2023. This makes it faster than any other fintech, and any other startup that I track in my database. Here’s what Alex had to say about Chip’s growth, its future, and some advice for future founders: “I'm pretty sure Chip is probably one of the fastest growing companies in the UK. In the last year Chip’s assets grew from £250m to over £4.5bn, and revenues have grown 800%. We're in no way slowing down, our roadmap for 2025 is extremely exciting and we're going to continue to disrupt how wealth is built and managed." "One bit of advice I'd give to people starting their own business is to iterate and change as quickly as you can until you find product market fit. Stay relentless in your hunt to find something that truly resonates with your customer so much that it grows itself." Chip is also one of the most crowdfunded businesses in the country, with over 30% of all shares held by investors who backed the company through various rounds of Crowdcube. It's an amazing community-led fintech waves waving in the UK - congrats Alex Latham, Simon Rabin and the rest of the team! Interested in hearing about best-in-class early stage startups? Sign up to my newsletter where founders pitch their startup in under 3 minutes to my community of VCs and Angels: https://lnkd.in/ekYzjAD9

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Insightful and potentially useful advice, thanks Manas

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Initial reaction to today’s #Budget: overall, it’s a sensible one, given our current fiscal situation and the need to ensure the UK remains competitive both globally and within Europe. Increasing Capital Gains Tax for chargeable assets – including share sales – to 24% reflects this balanced approach as does increasing CGT for carried interest to 32%. Both schemes are vital for encouraging founders to build businesses here in the UK and in bringing venture capital investment into the UK economy, which is essential for our economy’s growth. What will be crucial moving forward is working hand-in-hand with the government and our investor community to determine how carried interest will be taxed as income from 2026, applying bespoke rules that account for the unique characteristics of venture capital. Another key area for us is people – how do we both attract and develop more world-class talent? Maintaining Business Asset Disposal Relief (previously Entrepreneurs Relief) at the lowest tax rate, albeit with incremental increases over the next two years, is very important in enticing more people to migrate their careers to startups. Keeping this scheme helps us maintain our competitive advantage across Europe, but we must remain vigilant to this. Of course the cost of talent will increase with employers’ National Insurance contributions rising, impacting scaling teams and potentially pressurising the war on talent between UK tech firms. So we must double down on initiatives to bring the best and the brightest into the industries of tomorrow. It’s great to hear this Government plans to prioritise policies that support entrepreneurship and innovation including the protection of R&D, and we look forward to working together over the coming months to ensure these policies are conducive to the growth of our tech ecosystem and our economy as a whole. Rt Hon Rachel Reeves Jonathan Reynolds MP Peter Kyle Keir Starmer #UK #Tech #Founders #Entrepreneurs #Innovation #VC #talent

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PE, VC Funds can't believe their luck - we're staying... Capital gains tax rates on carried interest will be increased to 32% from April 2025. From April 2026, carry will be taxed within the income tax framework but, critically, with “bespoke rules to reflect its unique characteristics” This is a lobbying triumph for the British Venture Capital Association, which was warning darkly that funds would skip off to the EU if the manifesto pledge was implemented. The chancellor has instead settled for a rate that, on the OBR’s numbers, is similar to that in France and the Netherlands. The threat of a mass exodus may indeed have been real, rather than standard posturing, it should be said. It’s not too much harder to run a private equity fund from Paris rather than London. The effect on tax receipts will be considerably lower than projected but, in the end, finding the right balance was more important.

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3 down, 1 to go! 📚 Just crossed another module off the list (and yes, those crosses do look a bit sinister 👀). Having this visual progress pinned up on my noticeboard has been a game-changer for staying motivated - seeing how far I’ve come really keeps me going! With BA1 officially “un-alived" ⚔️, it’s time to put the calculator away for now and focus on wrapping up the last module at this level - BA4. Almost there! #CIMA #Progress #Motivation

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Was this really the intention? ➡ Extending RTS controls from slots to 'other' game types sounds fine. But the overhead involved in changing win types, enforcing 5 sec playtime and net position will mean a reduction in more casual 'other' games for the UK (primarily instant wins, video bingo and the like). ➡ The result will be to migrate players from lower risk game types to slots and table games. Surely the opposite of what was intended. 🎬 A snippet from a longer discussion with the amazing Kirsty Caldwell - full video link here for game compliance nerds! https://lnkd.in/dkxdBn_a

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