StrictlyVC London (May 2025) Recap: Tech Resilience, Emerging Startups, and Banking’s Next Phase

• AI for SOC automation: using models to triage alerts, summarise incidents, and draft response steps so analysts spend less time on noisy queues and more time on containment.
• Threat detection + identity verification: pairing behavioural signals with device and identity checks to reduce account takeover and synthetic identity fraud.
• Fraud prevention in real time: applying anomaly detection to payment flows and onboarding, with tighter feedback loops from chargebacks and disputes.
• Deepfake-enabled phishing: speakers repeatedly pointed to voice and video impersonation as a growing operational risk—especially for finance teams and privileged-access workflows.

The subtext: resilience isn’t just “more tools.” It’s governance, monitoring, and measurable response time improvements—plus an expectation that regulators will scrutinise how AI is used in security and risk decisions.

Emerging startups: what stood out in the StrictlyVC London 2025 recap

The startup conversations were less about hype cycles and more about proof of adoption. Where specific company names weren’t consistently surfaced in-session, the strongest signals clustered by vertical:

• AI security operations: products aimed at SOC copilots, automated investigations, and identity-centric security. A verifiable market signal in 2025–2026: security buyers increasingly demanded clear audit trails for AI-assisted decisions (who/what/why), not just accuracy claims.
• Developer tooling: platforms focused on shipping faster with guardrails—CI/CD observability, policy-as-code, and AI-assisted code review. A common milestone founders referenced: landing mid-market or enterprise design partners willing to co-develop workflows.
• Climate/energy software: optimisation layers for grids, industrial efficiency, and carbon accounting that can survive procurement scrutiny. The practical signal: pilots expanding from reporting into operational control (dispatch, scheduling, or optimisation), which is harder to win but stickier.
• Fintech infrastructure: compliance-first onboarding, payments orchestration, and risk tooling built for regulated distribution. The market signal: more teams positioned around bank-grade controls (KYC/KYB, monitoring, reporting) rather than “move fast” narratives.

For marketers capturing “tech trends discussed at StrictlyVC London,” the pattern was consistent: the startups that resonated were the ones that could point to real customer types, integration depth, and measurable time-to-value—rather than broad TAM slides.

Banking transformation: open banking/open finance and bank modernization

Banking discussions at StrictlyVC London in May 2025 focused on modernisation as an execution problem, not a vision statement. Speakers returned to three practical constraints: legacy cores, risk/compliance obligations, and customer expectations shaped by fintech UX.

Concrete examples that came up repeatedly:

• Open banking/open finance as a distribution layer: banks and fintechs treating consented data access as a product surface—especially for affordability checks, account verification, and smarter underwriting.
• Bank modernization via modular architecture: carving capabilities into services (payments, identity, lending decisioning) to reduce “big bang” core replacement risk.
• AI in fraud and servicing: using models to flag suspicious activity and to assist contact centres—while keeping humans in the loop for high-risk outcomes.
• Regulatory expectations: a clear message that innovation only scales when auditability, model risk management, and operational resilience are designed in from day one.

This is also where SEO and content teams can sharpen messaging: avoid vague “digital transformation” language and speak to specific buyer problems (integration timelines, controls, and measurable risk reduction). That’s the same reason understanding evergreen vs trending content strategy helps you decide which StrictlyVC London takeaways deserve long-term coverage versus a short news hit.

2026 check-in: what held true from May 2025

Looking from 2026, the May 2025 themes largely held up—just with tighter scrutiny:

• Resilience became more measurable: faster detection/response, better identity controls, and clearer AI governance.
• Startups that won attention were the ones proving adoption in regulated or operationally complex environments.
• Bank modernization continued to converge on open finance, modular rebuilds, and risk-first AI—because compliance and trust remained the real bottlenecks.