Blair Jr’s unicorn is a success story born in London
There will understandably be a huge amount of attention focused on Tony Blair’s son Euan today as his online apprenticeship platform Multiverse closes its latest round of funding, valuing the business at a remarkable $1.7 billion (£1.3 billion).
The sums suggest that he is well on his way to becoming the first billionaire to grow up in Downing Street, just six years after founding the tech start-up.
Perhaps it is a good moment to be reminded of his dad’s close ally Peter Mandelson’s famous declaration that New Labour was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes”.
But strip out the history, the politics and personalities and this is a success story London can be proud of. Unicorns — start-up companies with a $1 billion valuation — are the gold standard of the tech world.
Two-thirds of Britain’s unicorns were “made in London” and Marylebone-based Multiverse is no exception. It is claimed to be the UK’s first “EdTech” unicorn with 500 clients worldwide including Cisco, Google and Verizon.
It is heartening to see that, despite everything, London is still capable of creating explosively growing tech companies that rank alongside the best in the world in such an important and fast expanding sector.
It also shows once again that important though the levelling-up agenda is, London’s remarkable record as a wealth creation hub is vital to the health of the UK economy as a whole and should not be jeopardised.
