High hopes for 250 City Road as Berkeley unveils new tower at Tech City hub January 29, 2015 Anyone following the current spread of new developments cropping up around London could be forgiven for thinking the market on City Road is over-saturated. This long stretch off of Old Street roundabout has attracted a seriously impressive number of developers, which is partly a success story for Tech City (the government-backed initiative to create a [...]
Semetric and Musicmetric co-founder Gregory Mead: Meet the London physics graduate who built a $50m startup January 21, 2015 Imperial College London graduate Gregory Mead began work on the software that would eventually become a $50m (£33m) business while working on the university’s student newspaper in 2007. “We had about 20,000 readers, and I had 30 reviewers that would write about new music and go to gigs. I needed to find a way to [...]
Apple buys London startup Semetric January 21, 2015 Fresh from its $3bn (£2bn) of Dr Dre's Beats headphone brand, Apple has made its next big acquisition: UK music analytics startup Semetric. In the strongest sign yet that it's moving its focus back to music, the US tech giant has paid an estimated $50m for the company, based in London. The company, founded in [...]
Shazam joins billion dollar startup club after $30m funding round January 21, 2015 Music recognition service Shazam has closed a $30m (£19.8m) round of investment valuing the London-based firm at over $1bn (£659m). It makes Shazam one of just a handful of tech startups to emerge from the UK with a $1bn price tag attached. The new investment will be used to expand the service into new markets [...]
Canary Wharf Group expands Level39 tech startup space for fintech, retail and smart city entrepreneurs January 19, 2015 Canary Wharf’s tech startup space, Level 39, is taking on additional space at One Canada Square to house entrepreneurs focused on developing technology in the fintech, retail and smart city sector. Accenture’s 2015 Fintech Innovation Lab is the first to be housed in the new space and will be joined by another 36 companies taking [...]
Cameron isn’t trying to ban Snapchat, WhatsApp, iMessage and encrypted messaging January 14, 2015 If the reports were right, David Cameron this week was trying to succeed where Kim Kardashian failed: to break the internet. The reaction against his comments implying the government might ban encryption was loud, angry and fast. This is entirely understandable – even setting aside the civil liberties arguments, any attempt to ban encryption would probably [...]
How Tech City’s Future Fifty programme helped to supercharge my company’s growth January 4, 2015 My company, as one of a class of 12 firms, graduated from the Future Fifty at the end of last year, making room for a new class of 12. Future Fifty, a programme run by Tech City that aims to accelerate the development of growth-stage digital companies, has by now assisted many businesses well known [...]
Success of tech hubs sparks ICT firm dash for investment funds December 14, 2014 The success of UK tech hubs such as Silicon Roundabout has driven a 26 per cent rise in ICT (Information Communication and Technology) companies seeking to raise funds to fuel their growth through the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS). The EIS, a government initiative, is designed to encourage private investment in small companies through generous tax [...]
Startup stumbling blocks: Be sure to avoid these four fatal pitfalls December 14, 2014 The capital is brimming with rising startup stars. Last week, seven up-and-coming fintech firms were selected to join the government-backed Future Fifty scheme, run by Tech City UK. The programme seeks out our most promising high-growth tech businesses and helps them get to market. More widely, the UK was recently ranked the most entrepreneurial nation [...]
London FinTech stars join Tech City UK’s Future Fifty scheme as booming digital finance sector steals the spotlight December 10, 2014 The capital's crown as the financial technology epicentre of the world will be reaffirmed today as seven of London’s rising FinTech stars will join the government-backed Future Fifty scheme. TransferWise, Go Cardless and Algomi are among the group of 12 companies joining Future Fifty – run by Tech City UK, part of UK Trade & [...]