Research and analysis

Digital and Technologies Financial Statistics – Technical Report

Published 4 June 2026

1. Summary

This technical report accompanies the Digital and Technologies Sector Statistics publication, a novel release that uses company-level data to produce economic, financial, and innovation statistics.

The financial statistics presented include estimates of the total value of private-equity investment fundraising and the number of fundraising deals within the Digital and Technologies (D&T) Sector.

2. Sector Definition

This release adopts a dynamic, company-based definition of the D&T sector, rather than relying on Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes. This approach is intended to better capture the cross-cutting and fast-evolving nature of D&T activities, which are often poorly represented within SIC codes.

The D&T sector consists of 107,082 companies, structured around 2 components:

1. Frontier technologies (10,972 companies) – 6 priority technology areas identified in the Digital and Technologies Sector Plan in June 2025.
2. Digital (96,110 companies excluding overlaps with frontier technologies) – a set of companies comprising the wider digital component of the D&T sector.

DSIT has developed company‑level sector definitions, referred to as company lists. These lists identify in‑scope companies directly, rather than inferring sector membership from SIC codes. Each frontier technology area has an associated company list, and together with a corresponding list for the digital component, these are combined to form an overall D&T company list.

This definition is DSIT’s preferred definition of the D&T sector. For more detail on its construction and limitations please visit: Digital and Technologies Sector Statistics – Sector Definition.

3. Data Sources

This release uses Beauhurst fundraising data to produce key financial statistics.

Beauhurst fundraising data provide information on equity fundraising, including funding rounds that were not publicly announced. The data include verified investment amounts, as well as information on investors and advisers involved in each deal.

Beauhurst monitors thousands of online sources to identify announced equity investments. However, as unannounced fundraisings account for over 50% of all UK equity deals, Beauhurst has developed a methodology to detect these transactions using share allotment forms filed at Companies House^{[footnote 1]}.

• Beauhurst monitors share allotment forms to identify genuine equity investment rounds, including unannounced deals.
• Fundraising amounts are calculated based on the shares issued in return for investment.

Further information on Beauhurst’s methodology is available at Fundraisings, Acquisitions and Valuations - Beauhurst.

While some publicly listed companies are included in the D&T company list, equity issuance by publicly listed companies is not covered in Beauhurst fundraising data. As a result, these statistics should be interpreted as reflecting only private‑market equity investment activity within the D&T sector.

4. Methodology

4.1 Matching Company Registration Numbers

DSIT uses Beauhurst fundraising data, drawing on the Company Registration Number (CRN) associated with each fundraising deal, and matches this information to the new, company-list-based definition of the D&T sector.

This enables assessment of the annual value of private-market equity fundraising and the number of fundraising deals across companies included in the D&T company list. These company‑level figures are then aggregated to the D&T sector and frontier technology levels to produce aggregate private‑equity investment statistics.

The release also presents how these values vary by the life cycle stage of the company and by the origin of the investor.

4.2 Company Life Cycle Stage

Company life cycle stages are defined using Beauhurst’s life cycle classifications, which draw on multiple indicators including company age, employee numbers, revenues, valuation, and cumulative equity raised.

While funding-round labels (e.g. Series A, B, C) are widely used, they can be misleading proxies for a company’s stage of development. Instead, Beauhurst assigns companies to standardised life cycle stages based on underlying characteristics, enabling more consistent sectoral analysis and clearer assessment of investment patterns by stage. This involves a mix of automated classification and manual review.

The stages used in this release are defined as follows:

• Seed: Early‑stage companies with low employee counts, valuations, and cumulative equity raised. Companies may still be establishing product‑market fit or seeking regulatory approval. Funding typically comes from grants, angel investors, or crowdfunding.
• Venture: Companies that have developed their business model and technology, typically with valuations in the millions and growing revenues. They may be expanding their product offering. Venture capital and private equity are the most common funding sources.
• Growth: More mature companies, often operating for over 5 years, with substantial revenues, larger workforces, and activity across multiple locations. Companies may be profitable or hold high‑value intellectual property. Funding commonly comes from venture capital, corporate investors, asset managers, and mezzanine finance providers.
• Established: Long‑trading companies (typically 15+ years, or 5–15 years with sustained high turnover or profitability), usually with a recognised brand and multiple offices. Funding is often provided by corporates, private equity firms, banks, or specialist debt funds.

For more information on Beauhurst company growth stage classifications please visit: How We Classify Company Stages of Evolution - Beauhurst

4.3 Investor Origin

Fundraising deals have been classified into 4 categories based on the origin of the investor(s). Investor origin is defined using the investor’s head office location, derived from Beauhurst fundraising data. Categories are domestic‑only, mixed domestic and foreign, foreign‑only, and unknown.

Beauhurst fundraising data includes information on the investors involved in each deal and the location of their head offices. This information is used to classify deals by investor origin. Some deals involve multiple investors with different locations, and for some deals information on investor origin is not available.

For these reasons, fundraising deals are classified as follows:

• Domestic-only: deals involving only investors headquartered in the UK
• Mixed: deals involving both UK‑ and non-UK-headquartered investors
• Foreign‑only: deals involving only investors headquartered outside the UK
• Unknown: deals for which investor origin is not available

Equity deals with unknown origin accounted for £1.7 billion across 731 deals in 2025, equivalent to 20.7% of total D&T sector equity investment and 56.9% of total D&T sector deals. This reflects a substantial share of activity where investor origin cannot be reliably classified and should be considered when interpreting the distributional results. In this release, percentage figures by investor origin exclude deals where investor origin is unknown.

5. Strengths and Limitations

5.1 Using Company Lists

Using company lists is a key strength for measuring activity in fast‑moving and emerging D&T activities, where innovation does not map cleanly to SIC codes and firms often operate across multiple SIC codes. This approach provides more targeted coverage of relevant businesses than SIC‑based definitions.

However, company lists are produced using web‑scraping, machine‑learning, and expert validation, and are sensitive to underlying assumptions. They represent a snapshot in time and require regular updating to reflect business entry, exit, and changes in activity; as a result, historical comparisons may be affected by changes in list coverage.

For this release, the latest available lists for each frontier technology have been combined to create a single frontier technology company list. As these lists span different time periods, some newer market entrants may be excluded. In addition, differences in internal company classification frameworks across DSIT sector studies mean that some statistics may include non‑D&T activity, particularly where firms are highly diversified.

The methodology for identifying frontier technology companies will continue to be refined in future releases. Further information on the D&T company list is available at: Digital and Technologies Sector Statistics – Sector Definition.

5.2 Financial Statistics

Financial statistics in this release are useful for monitoring private‑equity investment across the UK D&T sector and frontier technologies, and for comparing patterns of investment by company life cycle stage and by investor origin within the sector.

However, equity investment can be highly volatile and should be interpreted with caution. These statistics should not be used to estimate total business investment or capital intensity within the D&T sector, as equity fundraising represents only one component of investment. They should also not be used to measure total equity issuance, as fundraising by publicly listed companies is not covered, nor to draw conclusions about non‑equity finance (such as debt finance or public grant funding).

6. Alternative Data Sources

Beauhurst is used in this release because it enables analysis based on a defined list of companies. Company‑level matching is carried out using Company Registration Numbers, which provides high coverage when linking the company lists used in this publication to fundraising data.

The dataset also provides deal-level information on private-equity fundraising, allowing estimates of the value and number of fundraising rounds completed by companies in the sector, with breakdowns by company life cycle stage and by investor origin. This level of granularity is not consistently available across other commercial financial datasets.

7. Feedback

This is an ad-hoc statistical release using exploratory methods to produce statistics for the D&T sector. We welcome feedback on both the statistics and methods used. Please contact: economicestimates@dsit.gov.uk.

8. Footnotes

1. How does Beauhurst find unannounced fundraisings? - Beauhurst ↩