Data provider shows how UK millennial businesses adapted to pandemic
Groundbreaking business data provider mnAI shows how UK millennial businesses have adapted to the global pandemic, and how industries have survived and thrived.
One year on from the first UK national lockdown, leading fintech company, mnAI, have shown that 2020 saw a 30% increase in millennial incorporated businesses compared to the previous year. The data platform revealed that 352,831 companies were founded by millennials in 2020 out of a total of 693,937, meaning millennials were responsible for 50.8% of the total companies formed that year. 2019 saw just 269,346 companies founded in the same age group.
mnAI is the largest source for company information in the UK, with over nine billion data points covering more than seven million UK companies. Based on artificial intelligence and machine learning, its platform means it can track every UK company in real-time, including how Covid-19 has impacted businesses.
As well as a significant increase in millennial incorporated businesses in 2020, there was also a two-year reduction in the average age of company founders, down to 34-years-old from 36 the previous year.
In 2019, most of the businesses founded by millennials were formed in October, whereas in 2020, most new business formations occurred in June/July (across the lockdown period) in the UK.
2020 also saw 190,937 incorporated male-founded businesses, which is 54% of the total, as opposed to female-founded companies, which amounted to 18% (65,643). This is less than the number of equally split boards by gender, which made up 19% of the total businesses at 68,065. The number of female directors in millennial-led businesses also rose from 92,403 in 2019 to 112,000 in 2020 – a 21% increase.
The highest region of companies newly founded by millennials was London with 21,276, followed by the North West with 6,276, and the West Midlands with 5,056. The most popular industry for new businesses was online retail, followed by IT services.
