Positive media coverage can be rocket fuel for founders and their startups – helping to shape and influence investor, consumer and other stakeholder sentiment and decision making. But media environments differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. This can have a marked impact on the way that innovation, disruption and, importantly, “failure”, are received and treated by the press.
Tech unicorns in particular are never far from headlines. Startups such as SpaceX, Revolut, and Deliveroo move through the media landscape like creatures of legend.
They command attention, curiosity, and… scrutiny.
Not every startup is going to become a unicorn. But, looking at how these billion-dollar valued enterprises fare in the (UK and US) media provides a useful proxy for understanding the environment founders are venturing into. And, in particular, the extent to which journalistic treatment of perceived failure or failings reflects the broader political and economic challenges founders face when taking an idea from start up to scale up.
A challenging UK market
In the UK, concerns have been rising in recent years that the political and economic climate is not conducive to supporting innovators to achieve scale. Case in point - London dropped out of the top 20 IPO markets in Q3 2025 according to Bloomberg.
There’s been a bit more good news recently. Buoyed by energy and data centre developer Fermi’s dual listing, along with positive noises coming out of Revolut, London may be on the road to recovery more generally… but issues do remain.
One particular issue becomes evident quite quickly when comparing how unicorn companies are reported on in the UK and the US.
That is, “failure” is a keyword on the verge of being endemic in UK news stories about unicorns.
Failing well
“Fail fast and well”, or words to that effect, has long been a mantra of Silicon Valley. Despite debate over whether a culture that embraces frequent and fast failures is the right one to foster productive innovation (see here for instance), it is true to say that many of the world’s great entrepreneurs got to where they are today because they were unafraid to take risks, fail, and try again.
But, globally, fear of failure is growing as an inhibitor to entrepreneurship – and this is most pronounced in the UK. The House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee recognised this issue and, in early 2025, warned that without stronger support, the UK risks becoming an “incubator economy,” where innovation is born but rarely scaled – with the UK’s homegrown tech unicorns increasingly likely to gallop overseas without action. As Baroness Fall put it, “we need to change our attitude towards risk… in the way we view entrepreneurs and their inevitable early failures.”
Clearly policy has a role to play here, and the UK modern industrial strategy has introduced a range of plans and measures to help Digital and Tech companies scale.
But PR has a role, too. This includes, not least, effectively communicating through entrepreneurial failures (including situations such as insolvency and litigation) - as much, if not more so, than about wins. And, when it’s time for a win story, messages must be developed to meet scepticism head on and plans put in place to anticipate, and neutralise, any counter narratives that might arise.
Failing well is not just an entrepreneurial tenet – being seen to fail well can enhance long term reputation value.
Failure in the media
This issue is cast into sharp relief when looking at the UK media’s reporting on unicorns in comparison to counterparts in the US.
We analysed media coverage of unicorns in UK and US media titles from 2022 to 2025.
Probably unsurprisingly, US media produced more coverage of tech unicorns overall, with 8,555 mentions compared to just 2,403 in the UK, around 3.6 times more volume.
However, digging deeper, UK media outlets mentioned ‘failure’ in their coverage of unicorns 243 times versus 184 in the US.
This means UK outlets had more mentions of failure despite covering unicorns far less overall. In proportional terms, references to failure made up over 10% of UK coverage, compared to just 2% in the US.
Put simply, our research suggests UK media is about five times more likely to frame unicorns through the lens of failure.
Now, this is a fairly rudimentary statistical analysis and should be interpreted with caution. But when coupled both with the broader economic and political climate, and the realities of the UK news economy, a surfeit of “failure” in the press may well reflect (or, in some cases, contribute to) the factors that deter some founders from starting and scaling in the UK.
Navigating bad news culture
We all know bad news sells. But the unique nature of the UK media ecosystem does create particular challenges for companies looking to tell ‘good news stories’. Journalistic balance, scrutiny and scepticism are central tenets of the UK media – arguably rightly so. But the impact is an environment where reporters are unlikely to take corporate news at face value. Unforeseen consequences, potential risks, negatively impacted demographics, ill-gotten-gains etc. etc. are all very much in the crosshairs.
For founders, and indeed corporates generally, this means that in dealing with the UK media, perhaps more so than press in other markets, the story that comes out may not be entirely what you expected, let alone wanted. Coming to terms with, and developing strategies to mitigate, that loss of control is an important part of the PR process for companies.
Example in practice: Waymo crosses the Atlantic
Take, for example, the contrasting media narratives around Waymo – Google’s ‘Self Driving Car Project’.
In the United States, outlets such as The San Francisco Chronicle have framed the company’s driverless vehicles as a symbol of technological progress; quoting a community service agent who described Waymo as a safe “senior transportation” option for the medically fragile population she serves. The tone here is one of cautious optimism, focusing on innovation, accessibility and public benefit.
In the UK, by contrast, coverage has been more sceptical. In The Guardian, a London black cab driver was quoted dismissing the very idea of autonomous taxis as a “fairground ride,” questioning their reliability and safety. The differing emphasis is telling.
Where US reporting often celebrates advancement, UK journalism gravitates toward scrutiny - probing risks, regulation and real-world implications before the first car even hits the road.
This anecdotal perception is reflected in the data.
We analysed the prevalence of a sample range of ‘negative’ keywords (ranging from “backlash” to “injury”) in media reporting about Waymo between 2022 and 2025.
These words appeared in 44% of UK media stories, but only 36% of US media stories. With a far smaller total volume of UK stories (around half the amount published in the US) the effect is concentrated still further.
Storytelling matters because public trust plays a key role in how new technologies such as autonomous vehicles are perceived, which can in turn influence regulatory and political support.
Securing a foothold in London - whether for Waymo, Uber, or another operator – can be heavily influenced by a combination of technological reliability, compliance with safety standards, and the effectiveness of communications. Crafting a clear narrative that addresses scepticism and highlights benefits to everyday users can shape public perception before policymakers make decisions. Understanding the different media landscapes in the UK and US is crucial here.
Confidence, capital and communications
Whether it’s a domestic UK business seeking to gain the limelight, or a US (or other international) venture making the leap to launch in the UK market – the media environment needs to be considered carefully. Attitudes to risk, innovation and failure shape, and are shaped by, the media discourse.
US outlets tend to champion innovation and celebrate founders as cultural icons, UK media often adopt a more cautious lens, questioning things like sustainability, ethics and valuation. Both perspectives serve a purpose. One can fuel belief, the other can help enforce accountability.
Scepticism, even outright criticism, of unicorns may be rational, especially after the collapse of hype driven companies like Builder.ai, WeWork and Theranos.
However, if unicorns are consistently framed as unrealistic, overvalued or ethically dubious, the wider challenges around entrepreneur confidence and scale up support risk become compounded.
This sentiment was echoed by the startup community at this year’s London Tech Week.
Founders and investors alike stressed that cultural infrastructure, not just financial or physical, is what moves the needle for sustainable growth. They called for more ‘patient capital’ and for narratives that acknowledge long development cycles, uncertain timelines, and the need to back people as much as products.
In a world where capital follows confidence, how unicorn and other startup stories are told matters.
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