Focus: Luxury brands w Location, location, room for value throughout the chain... I think ARM creation of a safe social network for children. ose is probably the keystone in that process.” companies flourish because of Tech City itself. e e dotcom bubble would burst in the early 00s, community acts as an extended support group. Its location but ARM, with its strategy of forging ahead through job fairs draw thousands of hopefuls and its pubs In our ongoing series on reputation, Brittany partnerships and communications, avoided the act as real-life chatrooms for the countless businesses Golob charts the development of the British disaster that befell its contemporaries. “Have many finding their feet in tech entrepreneurship. technology industry of them sold up and become satellites of mainly US Places like Stockholm and Berlin have established firms? Yes, but that’s true elsewhere too,” Cellan- technology bases, Gaza and Glasgow boast a startup Jones adds. “It has a positive side – small UK tech culture and Kenya will develop the so-called Silicon arold Wilson stood in front of the Labour start-ups have been quick to grasp the need to go Savannah by 2030. What makes London different, Party Conference at Scarborough in global and often that means they need access to the however is something it has boasted for centuries 1963 and declared that Britain needed a kind of capital only available in the US.” – the financial industry. Both geographically and Hrevolution. Revolution in the name of capitalism, As the 20th century faded into the 21st, Britain economically, the tech startups that crowd the streets of democracy and of science, a revolution that began developing a tech industry that seems of Shoreditch and the country’s signature financial would forge a new Britain. “We must use all the quintessentially British. It features cautious investors, institutions just a few stops away in the City have resources of democratic planning, all the latent and who perhaps remember the last time around and become part of the same framework. underdeveloped energies and skills of our people, to provide, but do not pour, capital into the small “Building momentum and a sense of community ensure Britain’s standing in the world,” he said. companies drawn to the cheap real estate in East by physically getting entrepreneurs together is a at standing was to be based on science London. As more entrepreneurs flood Shoreditch, very powerful thing. But actually getting the key and technology, on thought and reason. It was a more investment inevitably follows. stakeholders, financial institutions, entrepreneurs, continuation of what Alan Turing began at Bletchley e Tech City Investment Organisation (TCIO) highly technological skilled labour and so forth and Park just 24 years prior and it would proceed 26 emerged to support the community, sponsored bringing it together in an urban environment is years later when Tim Berners-Lee invented the by the UK Trade and Investment Organisation very interesting,” Antony Ceravolo, co-founder of World Wide Web. Some 19 years on, Wilson’s white (UKTI) to provide both physical and fiscal support ECNlive, a company that provides informational heat blazes today from the streets of Shoreditch to London’s fledgling startup community. e and interactive monitors for internal and external to the cafes of Cambridge. Britain’s tech industry community now includes hundreds of companies office-based communications, says. “What the UK is comprised of names like ARM, Vodafone and jostling for space in an increasingly crowded market. is doing really well is taking the high tech scene that Telefonica but also those of Graze, Hailo and Flubit. “Location is exceptionally important,” Flubit emerged in Cambridge and moving it into the heart Britain’s version of the 1990s dotcom boom co-founder Bertie Stephens says. After a move from of the financial sector.” developed along the M4 corridor and the so-called Newbury, Flubit found a home in the heart of Companies like Graze, LOVEFiLM, Hailo, moo. Silicon Fen when Shoreditch was just another London’s Tech City. e draw of a large community com and others exist partly because of the ease with amorphous district in London’s neglected east end. of tech companies attracts developers and investors which Tech City residents have attracted interest BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan- in droves. “Developers who you wouldn’t be able to from the financial district. Jones recalls working on a television programme in get otherwise, flock to this area. We are where the Stephens says Tech City is a draw for investors 1990 about hi-tech firms spawning from the vast talent is willing to go.” not only for its physical nearness, but also because halls of the University of Cambridge. e news Adam Keal, director at Fishburn Hedges, says of its reputation, “Investors don’t mind coming [to team was told that the area required a billion dollar the British tech industry had yet to find its identity Shoreditch]. at’s where the value is in the area. company to act as an anchor. “In the next decade at the end of the last millennium. “In the 90s, you When you say you’re in Old Street, they see you’ve this began to happen – ARM, Autonomy, CSR all had some great British investors and pioneers and taken the smart step to locate there.” For startups, became powerful businesses,” Cellan-Jones says. technology. You had a great tech scene in the UK, Tech City’s reputation has at least one very real From its origins in a Cambridge chicken shed, but not a technology industry as such. All the web advantage – an influx of capital. the founders of ARM Holdings knew they were darlings and the dotcoms were in the US. ere Tech City’s appeal, however, has seeped beyond hard-pressed to compete with America’s venture- were some great innovations coming out of the UK, the London’s borders; due largely to the success of capital-funded semiconductor culture so they but it was not known as a tech giant.” some of its offspring and the new tech clusters in sought to satisfy an unfulfilled need. us, ARM Tech City’s growing global prominence has since other countries. e TCIO has become a veritable developed world-class designs for high-efficiency turned the ‘Made in Britain’ stamp into a revered force in the technology world and has placed a “PR- microprocessors. It has since expanded to 36 concept in technology. “Most people in the UK will able” banner on British tech, Keal says. countries and over 1,000 partnerships with over recognise the words ‘Tech City’,” Keal adds. Mind Candy, whose brainchild Moshi Monsters 1,000 of the world’s biggest tech firms. In much the same way that ARM saw a need and has taken the under-14s of Britain by storm, has “I really do think that it comes down to not filled it a couple of decades ago, Tech City is rife set up shop in Silicon Valley. Julia O’Shaughnessy, wanting to do it all, not wanting to own the entire with companies that fill a need, whether they are as chief communications officer, says the excitement end to end process,” marketing director Ellie niche as Flubit’s provision of group-driven discount surrounding both California’s tech nucleus and Springett says about ARM’s growth. “en there’s shopping or as universal as Moshi Monsters’ London’s attracts employees, capital and passion. ▼ 24 Communicate February 2013 March 2013 Communicate 25 24-27_focus_mch.indd 24 15/3/13 09:16:30 24-27_focus_mch.indd 25 15/3/13 09:16:39.