Why you should watch: Post-Kalifa, post-Hill, post-DMU, post-Budget, post-Brexit, post-Covid... so much has taken place over the past few months. KPMG's quarterly tech monitor shows a 7-year high in optimism around short-term growth prospects among start-ups, and there has been a lot of good news (the continuation of the Future Fund, the FCA's scale-box, to name just two). But, what are the concerns? Three top issues coming out of the discussion include: (1) the need for a renewed focus on early-stage, "first cheque" start-ups, (2) with the Seedrs-Crowdcube merger squashed, what will the emergent Digital Markets Unit (borne out of the CMA) look like?, (3) how we can make a post-Brexit immigration system effective? An informative and entertaining discussion; we speak with two influential figures in the tech space.

Moderators: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI) & Leighton Hughes (FinTech Lead, CSFI)

Panellists:

Dom Hallas is the executive director at the Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec) – which he joined in January 2018 after a year at DExEU. Before, he worked on innovation strategies at Bloomberg Philanthropies, and (in the more distant past) for Greg Mulholland MP. Dom is a member of UK's Digital Economy Council.

Alex Fitzgerald is CEO and founder of Cuckoo, a young start-up making waves in the telco sector. Alex was previously at Hanbury Strategy, and HMT.