Working paper · Issue #005 · July 2026
The Miscounted 3%
A five-step recalculation of the female founder funding gap, from headline statistic to structural diagnosis.
Read the report
Decision Intelligence Register · October 2026
One Step Away
One in four UK firms is one step from ready. A yes-or-no view sets them all aside.
A forward-looking reading of 54,914 UK firms, most of them small, sorts those with a decision into three groups. A quarter are one step from ready. The report follows them: which capital fits each group, what a yes-or-no view leaves out, where the real gaps lie, and the questions to ask. It does not lower any risk threshold.
Of 52,769 firms with a decision
Gifftid R³ + R⁴ read, 12 October 202642.9%
Ready now
22,657 firms. The report calls this deployable.
25.7%
One step away
13,571 firms. The report calls this conditional.
31.3%
Not yet
16,541 firms, including 2,312 closed or closing. The report calls this not yet.
Key findings
What a yes-or-no view leaves out.
Written for lenders, investors, pension funds, foundations, buyers, growth bodies and policy makers.
57 in 100
A yes-or-no view sets most firms aside.
Keeping only the firms ready now leaves 57 in every 100 with a decision out of sight, including every firm one step away.
40.9%
Loans and equity fit fewer than half.
Loans fit almost three times as many firms as equity. Together they fit 40.9% of routed firms; a market offering only those two has nothing for the other three in five.
87
The middle matters most in transport, construction and hospitality.
Transport and logistics has 87 firms one step away for every 100 ready now, against 60 across the register. Construction and property sits at 85, hospitality and leisure at 82.
22.1–35.1%
The regional gap sits in the not-yet group.
The share one step away barely moves between regions (24.1% to 28.3%). The share not yet runs from 22.1% in Northern Ireland to 35.1% in London.
17% vs 64%
Age and size say more than region.
17% of firms set up in 2023 or later read ready now, against 64% of firms set up before 2000. Matched on size and age, London shows no detectable overall difference.
35 in 100
Modern SMEs are less often read, not harder to read.
35 in 100 Modern SMEs have no reading yet, against about 9 in 100 other trading firms. Once read, 46.0% read ready now, against 44.1%.
Find your lens
Three questions for each kind of institution.
The register doesn’t make decisions. It can sharpen the questions asked before them. None of these questions needs a lower risk threshold.
What’s inside
53 pages, eleven chapters.
Page numbers refer to the PDF.
- ·Why we built it4
- ·Before the findings7
- 143 ready, 26 one step away, 31 not yet8
- 2Loans fit almost three times as many firms as equity10
- 3Where setting the middle aside hurts most12
- 4If one in four converted14
- 5The regional gap sits in the not-yet group16
- 6Why not: four questions18
- 7Age and size say more than region20
- 8Modern SMEs: less often read, not harder to read23
- 9Thirty-three questions, eleven institutions28
- 10The analyst's view: what the numbers support40
- 1113,571 firms at a fixed baseline47
- ·How this was made50
Method and limits
How the readings were made.
What was read
The Gifftid R³ and R⁴ register as held on 12 October 2026: 68,892 organisations, of which 54,914 have a reading and 52,769 a decision. Mainly companies and LLPs registered at Companies House. Sole traders and unincorporated partnerships are not covered.
How readings are made
Readiness, resilience and risk are read from forward-looking signs alongside the public record. AI is used only to collect and structure public information. Gifftid’s rules are its own and deterministic: the same evidence always gives the same reading, and every reading can be traced back.
What it can’t tell you yet
The register is not a random sample and is not reweighted to official business counts. Readings have not yet been tested against outcomes; the first outcome read is due in January 2027. Decisions stay with the institutions that make them.
Full report · PDF
Get the full report.
All 53 pages, with every chart, the eleven lenses and the analyst’s tables. Every figure comes from the register as read on 12 October 2026.
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