The government is embarking on a multi-million pound funding scheme which will go towards the creation of new office spaces and workshops in the city.
Two years after the launch of the Tech City initiative, the government is announcing a £50 million plan for regeneration of the Silicon Roundabout area. The coalition will invest £50 million to go towards establishing a new “civic space” – billed as Europe’s largest – which will be dedicated to start-up businesses and entrepreneurs in East London.
The initiative is set to deliver 15 to 20 new jobs for core staff running the centre, a 400-seat auditorium, boardrooms, labs and workspaces, a 3D printing centre and T4 broadband, and will also go towards supporting the growth of the Digital Shoreditch Festival to an audience of 200,000.
These announcements from the government were accompanied by a host of major corporate commitments to Tech City, with businesses such as Microsoft announcing plans to a establish a Technology Development Centre in the heart of Tech City.
KPMG, the global professional services firm, announced the opening of an office in Shoreditch while IBM will bring its entrepreneur programme to companies in Tech City.
Prime minister David Cameron hailed the success of Tech City and said: “As well as backing the businesses of today, we are creating an aspiration nation and also backing the innovative, high-growth businesses of the future.
“That’s why we’re investing in creating the largest civic space in Europe – a place for start-up companies and the local community to come together and become the next generation of entrepreneurs.”
According to the Tech City Map, there are more than 1,300 companies in the cluster. In the first nine months of 2012, the TMT sector acquired almost one million square feet in the City, an increase of 39 per cent on the same period last year – and more space than the financial and insurance sectors combined.
