A British AI boss intends to quit Britain for the United States as the latter is more founder-friendly.

Gravitee CEO Rory Blundell is planning to relocate to Denver, Colorado with most of his senior team, reports The Telegraph.

However Blundell and his three co-founders had already chosen to headquarter the firm, founded in 2015, in Denver. It also has bases in London and Lille, France.

Last summer it was valued at $300 million in a $60m Series C round of funding.

“We haven’t nurtured the business environment to give founders success stories that you see in America with big companies like Meta, which don’t have equivalents in Europe and the UK, or give them the sense that they can benefit from their success and make money in Britain,” he said.

“One policy that I would anchor a lot on is the focus on entrepreneurs’ relief and use that to encourage people to relocate their businesses here.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves increased entrepreneur tax rates from 10% to 18% in 2024, meaning they would take home less cash from a future sale of their business.

Gravitee builds and manages API infrastructure to help organisations including Michelin, Schneider Electric, BMW and EY adopt AI at scale.

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UK universities are producing top engineering talent for the tech industry – but Blundell says that the US is a greater pull for graduates to build their careers.

“There is a political challenge to get the building blocks together to realise the potential benefits,” he said. 

“Until you address those challenges, you will always get the US ahead of Europe.”

Meanwhile research from Morgan Stanley suggests that the UK is losing more jobs than it is creating because of AI – and being hit harder than rival large economies.

British companies reported that AI had resulted in net job losses amounting to 8% in the last 12 months – higher than the US, Japan, Germany and Australia. The US reported a net gain of jobs.

Companies surveyed were in the consumer staples and retail, real estate, transport, healthcare equipment and cars industries.

The companies reported an average 11.5% increase in productivity thanks to AI , similar to levels in the US.

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