London Tech Week Seeks to Boost U.S. Investment in Startups 

London technology companies are starting a weeklong push to narrow the gap with Silicon Valley.

Startups in the city attracted about $800 million of funding from U.S. investors alone last year, according to Mayor Boris Johnson’s office. As this year’s London Technology Week starts at the Shard, the aim is to beat that figure as the city tries to establish itself as a world technology capital.

The number of companies in London’s digital technology industry has grown by 46 percent since the launch of the Tech City programme five years ago, according to figures produced by Oxford Economics released Monday. The tech firms now employ almost 200,000 people, 17 percent more than in 2010, it said.

“We need to continue our work to boost connectivity and arm the tech stars of the future with the skills they will need,” Johnson said. As part of that, he is starting a dedicated online hub for the digital industry. Sponsored by International Business Machines Corp. and created by Gust LLC, the Tech.London website includes London’s latest startups, investors, jobs and more.

Google Inc. said it was following a support programme for new mothers with a training scheme for entrepreneurs who are more than 50 years old, run at the Google Campus in London.

Critical Mass

“Literally in the last year or two we have seen a critical mass: more venture capital firms moving in and a tremendous number of entrepreneurs,” Nat Wei, who is director-general of Shoreditch Ventures and a member of the U.K. House of Lords, said in a Bloomberg TV interview.

More than 40,000 people, including investors and entrepreneurs, are set to attend some 200 events over the week, the organizers said.

Speakers include Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP Plc, William Eccleshare, CEO of Clear Channel International, and Joel Spolsky, founder of software-developer website Stack Overflow.

Spolsky will argue the phrase “Silicon Canal” would be an appropriate name for the London-based tech community, led by Google and Facebook Inc., growing up around Regent’s Canal, and replacing “Silicon Roundabout” to describe the Old Street junction.

Bloomberg’s headquarters hosts a Smarter Cities conference all day on June 18. Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, is a partner of the event organized by media company UBM Plc.

Source: Bloomberg – London Tech Week Seeks to Boost U.S. Investment in Startups

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