Even before he’d graduated from the University of Bath in 2024, Arnau Ayerbe landed a highly coveted role as an AI engineer with JP Morgan – yet he felt limited and uninspired.

“I realised very quickly that the person to my right and to my left were going to be me in 20 years, and I didn’t want to become that,” recalls London-based Ayerbe.

His best friend from high school in their native Madrid, Pablo Jiménez de Parga Ramos, who had also secured a corporate job after graduating from University College London, felt the same.

They joined forces in London in 2023 with Ayerbe’s university friend, Bergen Merey, to launch Throxy, which creates AI agents for sales teams.

Now all aged 24, the trio have raised nearly £5m in two rounds of investor funding, and annual sales of almost £1.2m.

They’re part of a growing number of 20-somethings who’ve taken the leap to start their own businesses. Data from Enterprise Nation shows that, in the UK, 62% of Gen Z – those born between 1997 and 2012 – want to start a business.

That’s reflected in trends seen in data from the British Business Bank’s Start Up Loans programme. It shows that the number of loans awarded to Gen Z founders has doubled in the past five years.

For the young entrepreneurs at Throxy, it’s been a rewarding but gruelling experience.

Ramos declares that there’s no nine to five culture at Throxy, rather a “9-9-6” ethos of working 9am to 9pm, six days a week.

And Ayerbe adds: “If I had known the amount of effort and work I needed to do to take the company to this point, I would probably have never started it.”

Throxy’s founders say one big advantage they have on their side compared with other generations is their familiarity of AI.

For Garcia, it felt natural to build an AI-led business.

“I was working with early models of Chat GPT on research projects before they were released to the public on research, and it honestly felt like magic.

“It felt like there was going to be something transformational here that is going to fundamentally change the way we as humans do work, for the better,” he says.

Perhaps one day Ayerbe and his co-founders will be in charge of a company worth more than $1bn (£740m) – known as a unicorn.

Research by investment network Antler suggests that the most successful AI start-ups are being founded by increasingly younger entrepreneurs.

It analysed 3,512 founders of companies that went on to be worth more than $1bn.

It found that the average age of an entrepreneur who founded an AI unicorn fell from 40 in 2020, to 29 in 2024.

But when you’re running a business in your 20s, it seems hard to avoid your clients and partners, who are usually older, from underestimating you.

That’s been the experience of Rosie Skuse, who, as a new business owner in her early 20s, was often mistaken for her boss’s assistant – and she would have to break the surprising news that she was, in fact, the boss.

“Some people wouldn’t even shake my hand. It was really tough, and I used to struggle loads with it. It’s frustrating when people don’t assume it’s your company. Then I’d start to speak and people could see I know what I’m talking about,” recalls London-based Skuse.

“Then they’d say, ‘wow, you must be so proud – but you’re so young’. That shock factor was almost like a secret weapon, because I would catch people off guard, and they would end up actually listening.”

Now 29, Skuse is the founder and CEO of Molto Music Group, a music and entertainment agency that counts high end names like The Dorchester, The Savoy, Soho House and Raffles as clients.

From its roster of over 300 musicians, Molto Music Group puts together bespoke house bands for those venues, often designing the stage and set too. It also works with luxury brands like Hermes and Patek Philippe on private events.

Despite launching in 2019, and the ensuing Covid pandemic causing her early clients to cancel their contracts, business is now strong. Molto Music Group made its first million in 2023, and turned over £1.6m in 2025. It employs seven full-time staff.

“I have no business education. It’s all been trial by fire and learning as we go,” says Skuse.

“I’ve had to work a lot on my tone and delivery – and my handshake – but being young and fostering a young company can be a breath of fresh air compared with our competitors. It’s more memorable.”

But business founders who’ve gone before have some words of advice for their younger counterparts.

Lee Broders, 53, started his first business at 26, in IT, after serving 10 years in the military. He’s been a serial entrepreneur since and now runs seven ventures, ranging from business mentoring to photography.

According to Broders, making your first million isn’t the be all and end all – it’s scaling a business to last into the future.

“Speed can often hide fragile foundations. Growing something quickly doesn’t always equal sustainability or robustness,” notes Mr Broders, who is based in Shropshire.

“It’s great if you’re turning over a million pounds, but if it’s costing £990,000, and you’re actually making £10,000 a year, that’s very different.”

Sarah Skelton is the co-founder and managing director of Flourish, a recruitment firm for the sales industry.

She started her first business in 2024 aged 46, and is concerned that founders in their 20s may miss out on valuable leadership and management skills that may be best learned in a traditional work environment.

“It’s great that in this day and age you can set up a business quite quickly. But I think you have to have lived experiences to be really strong at that leadership piece, which is the quite critical bit here,” says London-based Ms Skelton.

She’s the co-founder and managing director of Flourish, a recruitment firm for the sales industry.

“Also when you’re growing a business, leaning on people in a network is really important. But of course, if you’re super young and you’re going straight into this, where’s your network?

She adds: “My network is 25 years of placing candidates, selling to different businesses, working across different countries. It’s really tough when you’re that young. How do you know who to lean on and where to find those people?”