When Kieran O'Neill started his video hosting website HolyLemon he didn't know he was inventing The Next Big Thing.

The youngster, who was soon to start his GCSEs, was unwittingly pioneering a new type of website that within a few years would be worth billions.

When HolyLemon was born in 2003 as a way of showing off the Winchester teen's home made animation videos, the globe spanning giant that is today YouTube was yet to be created.

He was two years ahead of the internet giant and at the time was vastly bigger.

"At the time of its launch I remember seeing YouTube and thinking that it was good - this was back when my site was 10 times the size," he remembers.

But his head start in the cut-throat competition of the web was swiftly eroded and surpassed by the American upstart, which was sold in October last year for £880m.

It is just the latest in a long and oft-lamented line of great British ideas that have been turned into gold overseas.

Just last week former Southampton University student Richard Jones sold his music website Last Fm to US entertainment giant CBS for £141m.

Dr John Marti, director of enterprise at Southamp-ton University, said: "There's a long history of it happening. Over the years we have been pretty good at making things and pretty poor at selling them.

"It is down to a lot of reasons but we are not in general as entrepreneurial as the United States in terms of our make-up. It is good for individuals and the country if inventions like this can be exploited over here. It's not just about money, it makes you feel good and proud, especially with these kind of technologies, which are of the moment and new. We should try and exploit them ourselves."

Kieran, now studying a business degree at Bath University, said in an ideal world he would have handed over his baby to a British buyer but there simply wasn't one.

"I would rather have sold it to a British company in theory, but in reality the option wasn't there and I'm very happy with the result I've got.

"I think there are definitely a lot more people doing this sort of thing in the States so it's more likely to be acquired by a US company.

"I think there has been a lack of support for entrepreneurs in the past but over the last few years that's changed a lot. The tide is turning on that one."