This week's blog is shaped around Pantheon Macroeconomics' UK Webinar (22 Jan 2026) - full credit to their team for one of the clearest, most evidence-based reads of the UK macro backdrop I've seen in a while.

Venture capital didn’t recover in 2025. It split in two. One-half got $100M rounds, soaring valuations, and an infinite runway. The other half got ghosted.

As 2025 closed, the landscape settled into an uneasy equilibrium. Inflation slowed, and interest rates edged down, helping markets regain their footing, yet confidence remained fragile.

Markets didn’t crash. Growth didn’t surge. Instead, 2025 became a proving ground: a test of who could absorb uncertainty, reallocate decisively, and keep moving while others waited for perfect clarity.

Industry rankings usually tell us who is the biggest. Occasionally, they reveal something more important: how the sector's structure is changing.

Every so often, a piece of industry analysis lands that cuts through the noise. The McKinsey work on dealer fixed-cost absorption does precisely that: it shines a spotlight on a structural issue that has been building quietly in the background for years, and which now sits at the heart of the profitability challenge facing UK and European dealer groups.