TechHub

Reporter Leila Makki popped in to the TechHub the other day as part of this report into the tech cluster in London of which TechHub is a part, to ask: Can London Compete with Silicon Valley?

yReceipts

Gone are the days of paper receipts. yReceipts gives you the choice of being emailed receipts from any retail store. Never lose a receipt again while reducing the paper in your wallet and our impact on the environment. We also won’t share your email address with anyone. You get the receipt and nothing more (we don’t like spam any more than you do)!  yReceipts, leave paper behind.

 

Tastebuds.fm

Tastebuds.fm is a new music dating website that matches potential

partners based primarily on their tastes in music. It integrates

directly with popular Internet music radio site Last.fm, allowing

users to plug in their username and immediately populate their

profile. There’s also the option to manually input your favourite

bands when searching for matches. It launched in Summer 2010 and has

over 6000 members having had media coverage from the likes of The

Guardian, The Sun, Mashable.com and Mens Health USA.

Feedbackify

Listen to your customers. Be the first to know. Feedbackify your website now! Feedbackify is the easiest way to gather categorised, realtime feedback from your website visitors, so you can be the first to know about problems affecting the user experience, as well as generating valuable sales and testimonial leads.
 

icomplete

icomplete integrates telecoms and business applications (UC) together in-one-place to help small businesses stay in control and be more productive as a team. It's all about connecting people and devices from any location to the information that makes your business tick, saving time and money.

 

Zoopcast

Zoopcast is a location-based question and answer platform. If you've got a question related to where you are, or you want a recommendation of what to do or where to go, Zoopcast can help. Your question is sent to other people and businesses nearby, and they can give you an answer immediately. Don't search. Ask someone who's there.
 

Smartafeed

smartafeed is a development platform for aggregating information from multiple sources on the real-time web to produce a consolidated and filtered data feed for third party applications to consume, process and present. Users can create rules to aggregate and filter real-time data from web sites and social media to create a custom data feed. This data feed can then be used to develop focused applications with a simplified and reduced data volume and a single API. Data sources currently include the Twitter fire hose and RSS feed from any website. Facebook, LinkedIn and other data feed site integrations are planned as well as meta-data enhancement sites such as Klout and PeerIndex which will enable filtering based on extended user information such as social media influence and demonstrated expertise.

Plancentric
Plancentric is a new cloud software based approach for businesses that plan and manage professional resources. In the real world of constantly changing priorities, activities and unreasonable demands, rigid software can’t easily adapt, impeding productivity. Accurate tracking of resource utilisation, costs and progress is seldom available to make decisions, but can make or break the bottom line. Plancentric is a flexible tool that allows businesses to be more efficient, profitable and agile, through better control of resources, costs and task delivery. Plancentric eliminates manual spreadsheets and complex project management software to better manage the here and now, while flexibly planning for the future.

 

LONDON: TechHub, the member-based space based on 'Silicon Roundabout' aimed at technology entrepreneurs, today welcomed the Government's new initiatives to support the UK's tech startup ecosystem and the technology cluster in East London with a range of new initiatives. 

TechHub CEO Elizabeth Varley said: "We are very excited to see the UK government focusing on the high tech sector. Today's announcement shows a promising commitment to supporting British technology entrepreneurs and those from abroad who want to set up here in London.

"At TechHub we support technology entrepreneurs from the very early stages. And TechHub's peer-generated support between our members is designed to foster this network for the long term. We would hope to see the government ensuring that they support these small but high-growth businesses that have the potential to become the next technology giants of tomorrow.

"Today's announcement is far reaching but we also look forward to additional Government support now to foster current initiatives focused on the organically grown cluster in East London of which TechHub is a key part."

TechHub cofounder Mike Butcher added: "This is a great initiative by the Prime Minister. Just by shining a light on these issues and this area of London, he's given a shot in the arm to the startup community. But TechHub believes there is more work to be done. On simplifying RnD tax credits to bring in open source; shepherding the investor community to point towards this burgeoning innovation cluster; Seed and Matching funds and a loosening of the tax burden on individuals and institutions which bare the risk of investing in high growth technology companies. However, we're very excited by these first moves."

Varley added: "TechHub views this latest initiative as a very strong start, and we look forward to participating in its development and reflecting the views of our member community." 

TechHub surveyed its growing membership of technology startups, developers, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists about the government's announcement, Below is a selection of reactions from our community:

 

"David Cameron's announcement is great news.  The best resource when starting up is the community of other entrepreneurs who've been there and done it. Silicon Valley and neighbouring San Francisco work so well due to the proximity of the tech community and available talent. Whilst not every business has a god-given right to finance, there is a major lack of access to funding routes in the UK compared to the U.S. and any London-based 'Facebook's of the future' are often forced to relocate to the Valley. So the governments latest initiative may well mean one of my London peers will be the next Twitter or Google."

Simon Prockter, founder, Housebites.com

"The idea of building a UK hub for technology businesses is essentially a good one and with major players like Facebook and Google already expected to invest, it will be a major boost to the economy."

Andy Davey, SQUADIFY.com

"Any initiative that creates jobs has got to be good but has to be coupled with a recognition of our own home grown talent... We hope the government will continue support talented individuals from abroad but also the current generation of British graduates looking for work, and enable them to take an active role in this community. It is important that this initiative is directed at supporting the existing start-up eco-system that exists at TEchHub, across East London and around Silicon Roundabout rather than attempting to artificially create a new technology centre based in the Olympic park."

James Crowley, TechEye

"Despite the recent significant improvement in the London tech environment (for example TechHub), the visa system is a terminal burden. As Silicon Valley demonstrates, great minds come together irrespective of borders, and the US is starting to recognise this. If the UK is serious about supporting start-ups, the visa system requires an urgent and serious re-work. I hope the new Startup Visa will address these concerns."

(Unattributed TechHub Member)

"It's a great first step. The question still remains: how will the government incentivise investors to become part of the cluster - and to invest especially in early stage businesses?"

Alex Guest, TVPixie.com

“It’s great to see the government’s recognition of the importance of cross collaboration between education, business and finance. Being based ourselves at TechHub, right in the heart of the action, has only reinforced that spirit of camaraderie. However, what remains to be seen from the recently announced £200M investment is how much of the investment will go to building an infrastructure to to support existing early stage UK entrepreneurs. Our hopes our high.”

Vanessa McDonald, General Manager - UK Technology PR specialists, Ballou PR

“The idea of building a UK hub for technology businesses is essentially a good one and with major players like Facebook and Google already expected to invest, it will be a major boost to the economy."

(Unattributed TechHub Member)

 

"Londons tech start-ups have already started gravitating to Silicon Roundabout... There is a reason why people are already in Old street. It would be great if the government will look at investing in the existing area and people that have already started the movement."

(Unattributed TechHub Member)

Culture Secretary writes in The Times newspaper today and mentions TechHub (page 28): 

"In many ways, the energy and chutzpah of Silicon Valley remind me of the East End of London, where hundreds of internet and technology companies are clustered across Old Street and Shoreditch . BERG, the creative design consultancy, is one, and spaces such as Tech Hub show the appetite for entrepreneurs to come together in vibrant community areas.

It’s not surprising that these two areas should be similarly entrepreneurial. As the sociologist Richard Florida has argued, creative people want to work in creative areas. So just as the cafés and bars of San Francisco attract entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley, so the galleries and clubs of Shoreditch are a huge draw for businesses in Europe. Creative areas such as these are going to become more economically significant because the nature of growth is changing."

• Silicon Valley's DNA resides in Silicon Roundabout and London's new TechHub

• Startup cluster grows 700% in three years
 

FOR GENERAL RELEASE 
 

LONDON: London's new TechHub, the space for the technology community, is acting as a catalyst for the increasingly active startup scene, which is exploding in the area around Old Street roundabout, known to locals as Silicon Roundabout.

Built like a members club for technology startups (apply to join here) - where the 100 megabit-per-second wifi is considered more important by members than the expensive Club Sandwich found in the average London club - the recently launched TechHub is rapidly becoming the meeting place for entrepreneurs from across Europe, in London. And it has research to back up this claim.
 

In July 2008 a crowsourced Google map put up by UK startup Dopplr (bit.ly/siliconroundabout), and featured by the Evening Standard newspaper, showed 15 technology startups in the area. Later, a survey by Wired magazine in 2009 found, at first 42, and later 85 companies.

But some three years later, TechHub's in-house research has identified over 100 tech oriented companies (107 to be exact) based in the area around the Old Street roundabout. On the raw numbers alone this represents a 700% growth of technology companies in the area, representing a huge leap in the innovation coming out of this part of London.
 
 

While San Francisco has Silicon Valley and New York has "Silicon Alley", London's Silicon Roundabout is staking its claim as the new tech start-up hub of the moment.

The cluster of young web and tech companies in EC1 dates back to dotcom days, attracted by the cheaper rents and a vibrant nightlife, but more recently the startup "space", TechHub, has recently arrived to help act as a lightning rod for the technology community in the area, creating the "serendipitous connections" where innovation thrives. These are the connections written at length about by Steven Johnson's new (2010) book, "Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History Of Innovation." 

It's clearly working.

Los Angeles-based Mobile Roadie opened its London office in July 2010. The firms' Stephen O'Reilly says "Over the last four months Techhub has been an invaluable resource and destination for networking, sharing and learning. I always take the opportunity to call in after work to see what's happening at Techhub. I have met some great people at many of the Techhub nights and we even managed to recruit a new team member. We would highly recommend Techhub as a great destination in the heart of the silicon roundabout for any tech startups wanting to do business in the UK." 

Danny Bull, Digi Nut, chimes in: "There's nowhere else quite like the Silicon Roundabout in London where you can be at the center of so many interesting startups and companies. TechHub is quickly becoming the place where startups congregate, from lone entrepreneurs to growing businesses. It's affordable, accessible and inspirational." 

Any community needs its heroes and one still based in the Old St area is Last.fm, the online music community bought by CBS for $280m (£140m) in 2007, one of the largest UK web company buyouts of recent years.

Cofounder Martin Stiksel was interviewed by the Financial times saying: “Old Street was a seemingly unlikely place to build a web company when we came here six years ago, but there’s no doubt it’s now becoming a hive of tech activity. The noise, vibrancy, and underground attitude of East London certainly rubs off on you, and inspires fresh perspectives – something I think all these start-ups share."

Slap bang on Silicon Roundabout is Moo.com, which prints business cards based on photos from sites such as Flickr or Facebook, and other real-world products based on virtual content.  Founder and chief executive Richard Moross says the affordable local offices are not just the point of the area, but the community.

Matt Biddulph of the startup Dopplr - last year bought by Nokia for a rumoured $15 million - says “For me it’s all about the community here. We moved in because our friends did too.” (FT).

As well as TechHub running events for startups and technology communities, the area is also home to a vibrant network of cafes and has a strong local art scene.

Early stage tech startups find that, especially if you are starting up for the first time, being able to have access to a network of peers is extremely important.

That cluster of peers is clearly one of the major attractions of Silicon Roundabout, and of TechHub in particular.

The peer-mentoring that takes place, especially in the technology space which is very geared towards innovation through information sharing, is key. This is at the core of TechHub's philosophy and why its network of members is growing at a pace.
 
More views from TechHub members and startups:

"Techhub is the much needed focus for what could turn out to the the second most important industry for London, behind Finance. This era of lean startups which is exploding, due to cheap cloud computing and great engineers, will be regarded as the golden era for tech startups in London and Techub will be seen as the epicenter." Keld Van Schreven, Diary.com

"For a new guy in town Techhub was very friendly place to start working in London.  Surrounding startups, events and nice space were a great welcome and made my life much easier." Viktor Marohnic, Shout'em (Slovenian startup with a base in London via TechHub)
 

More About TechHub

TechHub (@TechHub on Twitter) is the new hub for the technology community. Just 10 seconds walk from Old Street tube station, TechHub London is aimed specifically at technology entrepreneurs, startups and developers. Inside London’s main technology cluster and close to the financial heart, it offers affordable permanent desk spaces, a large member-based co-working area, meeting rooms for hire, a large board room and a conference/event space for up to 200 people. You can work all day on the 100mbps wifi and connect with a great community of TechHub members. TechHub runs its own events as well as being available to hire for tech or developer events, conferences or meetups. Members are already joining TechHub from all over Europe, Silicon Valley, the Middle East and Asia to use TechHub as a base when they’re in London and we’re arranging Member discounts at some of the great bars, restaurants, cafes and hotels in the area too. TechHub facilities include: 50 permanent desk spaces for monthly hire, pre-bookable hotdesking, meeting rooms for hire by anyone (discounted for TechHub members), A/V, whiteboards, kitchen facilities and printing. Permanent deskspaces come with wifi/wired data, power and a mailing address. Address: TechHub, Ground Floor, 76-80 City Rd, London, EC1Y 2BJ. Old St tube (exit 5) and a short walk from Moorgate Tube, Liverpool Street mainlines station, and close to taxis and buses. TechHub was founded by Elizabeth Varley and Mike Butcher.
 
Contact: Elizabeth Varley

Contact TechHub:
Phone: +44 20 7490 0764 (or 020 7490 0764 within the UK)

TechHub London

Ground Floor

76-80 City Rd

London  EC1Y 2BJ

UK

**** Technology startups in the "Silicon Roundabout" area identified by TechHub's research include: *******

Buildabrand (Based at TechHub)

buildabrand is an online branding system that allows you to create, manage and apply instant, personalised and strategically correct branding to your business. buildabrand allows you to instantly create a strategically accurate brand identity. It requires no creative, design or branding skills. Services are delivered online instantly from within the site, or as downloadable digital files for home production. You can buy brand design at any time in a convenient online environment. The process is easy, quick and affordable. Create a personalised brand and order your items in minutes.

Shout'em (Based at TechHub)

“Roll your own Microblogging/Mobile Social Network” service. Shout’Em enables businesses and individuals to start their own mobile social networks, especially those devoted to a particular niche. In its essence, Shout’Em is “Ning for mobile”. Shout’Em enables users to create a simpler, mobile social network. The service comes in two flavors: 1) a free solution for small communities supported by our own advertising and 2) an enterprise solution for mobile operators and more advanced online communities such as news portals, local social networks and so on.

My Neighbourhoods (Based at TechHub)

My Neighbourhoods is an online service that allows users to find out more about the area in which they live. Users can find local information and reviews on such topics as eating out, pubs and restaurants to health, schools, shopping, handy men and builders. The site was created to take advantage of the collective power of neighbours and provide people with a trusted source of help and advice. Initially launched for the UK market, the site will soon expand into other countries.

Fastrades (Based at TechHub)

www.fastrades.com helps people Buy, Sell and Swap using Twitter. Launching in London we enable Twitter users to buy, sell and swap goods and services using the power of their trusted Twitter social network.

Diary.com (TechHub Member)

Diary.com is a way to create private and shared diaries in a Twitter-like interface which enables the posting of text, links, pictures and video either privately, publicly or in shared private environments for group collaboration, shared ideas, scrapbooking and conversation.

PageDo (TechHub member)

PageDo is an online service for building and testing highly effective landing pages for marketing, advertising and social media campaigns. PageDo provides all the tools to build simple landing pages that are optimized for gathering responses from a specific target audience.

Siondo (TechHub Member)

Siondo is a London-based software service vendor that supplies owner managers and directors of small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) with a set of integrated software applications that enable simple and efficient management of all key business functions. Siondo software is distributed through a secure monthly subscription model via the Internet. All users need to run Siondo is a PC or MAC with a Web browser and an Internet connection. Our software works best with Microsoft Internet Explorer, Safari, or Mozilla Firefox. Just open your browser, login and go - anytime and from anywhere.
 
Mobile Roadie (Based next door to TechHub)
Mobile Roadie allows anyone to create and manage their own iPhone and Android apps. Founded by Brock Batten (Creative Director) and Michael Schneider (CEO) in 2009, they have created over 600 apps for musicians, authors, athletes, and businesses. Their offices are located in Los Angeles and London.

7Digital (Based 5 mins from TechHub)

7digital is a privately held company based in central London, UK and is backed by Benchmark Capital, the venture capital firm behind eBay and other leading technology companies. 7digital is the UK’s leading digital media delivery company, catering for record companies, artists, film and TV companies as well as other digital media owners throughout the world. In March of 2008, the company secured the first deal to exclusively sell Warner Music’s full catalogue of DRM-free music across Europe.The site already had a deal to sell EMI’s DRM-free music and is also negotiating with Sony BMG and Universal.

AMEE (Based next door to TechHub)

AMEE’s aim is to map, measure and track all the carbon and energy data on Earth - to address the largest threat facing humanity. Business, Consumer and Government applications are “Powered by AMEE” to ensure compliance with authoritative international standards. The AMEE platform is used internationally by many organisations including The UK Government (Defra/DECC), The Irish Government, The Welsh Assembly, PricewaterhouseCoopers, CNN, Google, Morgan Stanley, Nesta, the Energy Saving Trust, BRE, Radiohead, Sun Microsystems, plus numerous other IT, consultancies, agencies, business services and software companies.

Last.fm (Based 5 mins from TechHub)

Last.fm is a social networking company which revolves around its music recommendation engine. Recommendations are made by comparing user data to the rest of the Last.fm user community. Unlike competitor Pandora, Last.fm’s recommendations are not generated by matching similar musical attributes. However, its community driven engine gives it more potential to grow into media other than music. This is most likely a reason why media giant, CBS, acquired Last.fm for $280 million in May of 2007. Last.fm grew from very modest funding compared to its competitors Pandora, ilike, MyStrands and others.

Moo.com (Next door to TechHub)

Located in London, Moo prints “MiniCards” from your photos which can be uploaded directly or accessed through Flickr, Bebo or one of Moo’s other partner sites. Every single MiniCard can have a different image on it, which has turned them into somewhat of a collectors item. Moo says they “dream up new tools that help people turn their virtual content into beautiful print products” and indeed they have. After originally only offering MiniCards, Moo now offers NoteCards and stickers. Moo, which raised $5 million from Atlas Venture and Index Ventures in April 2006, has sold “several million cards” to customers in 143 countries - including North Korea.

MusicMetric (Based 5 mins from TechHub)

Musicmetric offers detailed analytics and trend forecasting for the music industry. Musicmetric is creating software tools and services using machine learning algorithms designed to measure online buzz and deliver relevant analytics. Their tools enable deep analysis of marketing performance, designed to add efficiency and accurate campaign targeting. Additionally, their software offers predictive trend forecasting for artists, genres and sales within the mainstream label, indie and unsigned sectors of the music industry.

Shutl (Based 5 mins from TechHub)

Shutl is a web-service that brings delivery up to speed by letting shoppers get what they want, when they want it. Shutl lets shoppers choose to receive online/in-store purchases within as little as 90 minutes (“Shutl Now”) or within a 1 hour delivery window of their choice (‘Shutl Later”). Shutl delivers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The service is currently being trialled in London. Think Kozmo.com and Urban fetch but with a 2.0 business model… The company was founded by Tom Allason the founder & former CEO of eCourier.co.uk in 2008. The company launched at Le Web on 9th December 2009.

Skimlinks (Based 5 mins from TechHub)

Skimlinks is a London-based company started in 2006. Their key product is SkimLinks, a simplified affiliate marketing tool for publishers. It helps blogs, forums, and content sites the ability to earn revenue from affiliate marketing with no technical or admin effort. Skimlinks turns links on content sites into their affiliate marketing link equivalents on-the-fly, so publishers can focus on creating quality content rather than creating and maintaining affiliate links. Skimlinks is integrated with 23 international affiliate networks,with more than 11,000 merchants in its system. Skimlinks has won numerous awards for their innovative technology; in 2009, Skimlinks won Best New Entrant, Best Use of Technology in Affiliate Marketing and Innovative Affiliate of the Year at the A4U Awards, and was shortlisted in the NMA Awards and The LinkShare Golden Link Awards, while CEO Alicia Navarro was a finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year at the National Business Awards. In 2010, Skimlinks was named a Smarta 100 winner, won the Linkshare Golden Link Awards Technology Genius prize, and were named number 24 in the Startups.co.uk Top 100.

Songkick (Based 5 mins from TechHub)

Launched October 2007 by co-founders Ian Hogarth, Michelle You and Pete Smith, Songkick is an online database of concerts for music enthusiasts. Has $4.52M in funding.

Tweetdeck (Based next door to TechHub)

TweetDeck is an Adobe Air desktop application, currently in public beta, that looks to capture the abundance of social media and display it in a unique columned user interface. In recent months there has been an explosion in social media with hundreds of services offering an abundance of information to the masses. TweetDeck is a realtime application that allows users to monitor that information in a single concise view. TweetDeck currently integrates services from Twitter, Twitscoop, 12seconds, Stocktwits and now Facebook. $3.8m in funding.

We loved this report. Especially the part where it says:
 

It's well understood that existing companies of all sizes constantly create – and destroy – jobs. Conventional wisdom, then, might suppose that annual net job gain is positive at these companies. This study, however, shows that this rarely is the case. In fact, net job growth occurs in the U.S. economy only through startup firms.

The study bases its findings on the Business Dynamics Statistics, a U.S. government dataset compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau. The BDS series tracks the annual number of new businesses (startups and new locations) from 1977 to 2005, and defines startups as firms younger than one year old.

The study reveals that, both on average and for all but seven years between 1977 and 2005, existing firms are net job destroyers, losing 1 million jobs net combined per year. By contrast, in their first year, new firms add an average of 3 million jobs.

Further, the study shows, job growth patterns at both startups and existing firms are pro-cyclical, although existing firms have much more cyclical variance. Most notably, during recessionary years, job creation at startups remains stable, while net job losses at existing firms are highly sensitive to the business cycle.

Because startups that develop organically are almost solely the drivers of job growth, job-creation policies aimed at luring larger, established employers will inevitably fail, said the study’s author, Tim Kane, Kauffman Foundation senior fellow in Research and Policy. Such city and state policies are doomed not only because they are zero-sum, but because they are based in unrealistic employment growth models.

And it’s not just net job creation that startups dominate. While older firms lose more jobs than they create, those gross flows decline as firms age. On average, one-year-old firms create nearly one million jobs, while ten-year-old firms generate 300,000. The notion that firms bulk up as they age is, in the aggregate, not supported by data.