I’m Eoin Marsh – Tech Nation’s temporary East of England Scaleup Engagement Manager, covering for Thea Goodluck. We’re building a national network of ambitious entrepreneurs. If you’re a founder who requires support, feel free to book a meeting with me using this form.
Opportunities and events
Interested in attending events for digital tech founders in East of England? Then follow Eoin on Twitter, where he’ll be sharing the best ones that come her way.
Eoin also tweets noteworthy national opportunities for founders – everything from accelerators and competitions to investment and collaboration opportunities, panels appearances, and much more.
Have an event or opportunity for Eoin to tweet? Get in touch
Read our latest report: ‘The future of UK tech built‘. See below for headline stats and case studies from the East of England.
For additional stats, explore Data Commons. It’s our ground-breaking national database of technology businesses, founders, investors, VC funds, angels, accelerators, universities and service providers to the sector.
£22bnTotal turnover in East of England’s tech sector
How is your company disrupting a part of the economy?
The sharing economy is thriving and estimated to grow three-fold by 2025. Its success is particularly prevalent in the accommodation and property market, with the rise of platforms like Airbnb. We were the first to establish how the UK’s major insurers treat customers who participate in short-term letting. We found that there were significant shortfalls in both the cover they offer and their communications with their customers about the issue. It highlighted the lack of public and broker awareness that exists around this topic.
To address this situation, we launched a range of specialist insurance products that are designed to run alongside standard home and landlord policies on offer from insurance providers. They provide the cover for theft, damage or public liability that may be incurred by a guest. It means that the generation of Airbnb-ers can now prosper in the sharing economy without the worry of significant financial loss.
Why did you feel that the place or region that you are based in was a good place to disrupt your industry?
I live in Norwich so it was natural that this was the place for my startup. Norwich is home to Aviva, one of my previous employers. There is a rich supply of talent with extensive insurance experience that Louise was able to call upon and recruit from.
My senior team have pretty much all worked with me at some point in my career. Norwich is also home to many tech startups that have been successful in achieving national and international success. Many of those who led those companies are now investors in Pikl.
With easy access to London and delivering economic advantages in terms of salaries, office space and living expenses (and being a great place to live) it was the natural first home for Pikl. There is also a good supply chain of insurance savvy service providers such as marketing agencies that Pikl are working with.
BIOS is developing a full-stack neural interface platform that uses AI to decode and encode the signals from the brain to the body, all to treat chronic health conditions.
Why did you choose to base your company in your place or region?
BIOS is headquartered in Cambridge, UK and we have recently opened R&D offices in Montreal, Canada. Being the home of the world-renowned university, Cambridge is firmly established as one of the world’s leading concentrations of biotechnology and life sciences, and artificial intelligence, and thus makes the city a perfect place to foster talent and innovation for an emerging company such as BIOS.
Our founders Emil Hewage and Oliver Armitage both studied for PhDs at the University of Cambridge. Besides flourishing with world-class scientific research and innovation, Cambridge is one of the highest-ranking cities for tech investment in the UK. Thus our offices being located at the heart of Cambridge supports the scaling of our company.
BIOS is enabling AI-based healthcare treatments that are promising to be an adaptable treatment alternative to pharmaceuticals. In partnership with MILA, we have chosen to open our R&D offices in Montreal to expand our research capabilities in AI and machine learning. The MILA centre has contributed to establishing Montreal as one of the world’s leading AI hubs, which makes the city a perfect place to base our research and development efforts in this field.
How is your company disrupting a part of the economy?
KisanHub disrupts the traditional food supply chain model, which heavily relies on paper records, estimation on yield and quality. The platform provides full transparency of the supply chain, from seed to sale or field to factory. Therefore more profitable procurement decisions can be made by planning, forecasting and recording all production and supply information in one central platform.
We connect commercial food companies with the multiple data sources they need to better understand their business, market, and supply chain. For example, we combine complex satellite imagery, weather patterns and management software to provide crop monitoring, yield and quality forecasting, which helps the storage and transport of the food to the processors and the final distribution to the customers.
Why did you feel that the place or region that you are based in was a good place to disrupt your industry?
Cambridge is a hive for technology companies, for both small scale startups and well established larger organisations. We are very well-suited to this city, as this focus on technology and innovation creates an enthusiasm which is very inspiring to be around.
Cambridgeshire and the East of England is especially fitting for us in agri-tech because agriculture is a large part of the economy in this part of the UK. There are very exciting and industry-leading companies connected with food production and farming based here alongside us, so we feel very fortunate to be based here.
Developing Experts provide a complete curriculum programme mapped against the National Curriculum in biology, chemistry, and physics for ages 4-14 years. Our approach to learning has already been road-tested and voted best edtech product in Europe, winning Tech Nation’s Rising Stars earlier in 2019. 1500 Chinese schools start to use our programme in February 2020.
Developing Experts signpost relevant links between the curriculum, industry and training providers from a variety of STEM-related sectors. Our solution saves teachers’ time, upskills their knowledge, raises standards and has the potential to attract more young people into STEM-related jobs. It addresses the sector’s needs and skills shortage by enabling teachers, parents, and children to learn about industries throughout the curriculum.
Why did you set up your company in the place/region you are based?
I have worked and lived in Norwich for the majority of my professional working life and am committed to the area. Developing Experts is pleased to have New Anglia Capital who invests in companies committed to the region.
What challenges are you facing in your business?
Thanks to recently winning a range of significant contracts, Developing Experts is upscaling the company to manage the demands of our growth. Securing the right team and talent is critical to our next steps.
We are tackling the global skills shortage in data science and AI. We use our AI-powered learning platform KATE to provide data science and AI education at speed and at scale. KATE is developed as part of a research project with the University of Cambridge and funded by Innovate UK, providing learners with instant feedback on their code when submitted to KATE. It also identifies common errors in their code submissions which allows KATE to make personalised recommendations for learning resource to help the learner improve. Using KATE, we help people learn data science and AI faster, with a focus on production-ready code.
Why did you set up your company in the place/region you are based?
Cambridge has great access to talent for tech development and for teaching staff, which is perfect for an educational company teaching at the cutting-edge of tech.
The city is home to so much support for startups, such as Accelerate Cambridge, with a great blend of business and technology advice available to help new companies grow. There is a very strong network built around the tech ecosystem which really helps with introductions and opening doors that we might struggle with elsewhere.
What challenges are you facing in your business?
It can be difficult to get in front of the right decision-maker. What we offer crosses over a range of different areas of responsibility in business – data science, technology, L&D, HR, recruitment – so finding the person who has ultimate responsibility can take time.
It can take time to find the right hires for new positions (in Cambridge and London). Finding an individual with the right mix of skills, experience and passion can be a challenge, especially when a new vacancy opening probably means you need them as soon as possible and you can’t afford mistakes.
What about your place or region has enabled you to scale your business?
We were founded in Cambridge, a home for innovation. At the heart of our technology is Bayesian mathematics developed by Bill Fitzgerald and a team of academics from the University of Cambridge. We have maintained this strong link with the university, and the mathematicians and software engineers at our Cambridge HQ are the great minds behind our technology, and what makes it world-beating.
We have grown rapidly, requiring us to build an international leadership team at a very fast pace. The key to our ability to achieve this has been the people we hire. Potential is more important to us than experience – and Cambridge has offered some of the best talent in the world with which to build our global company.
AI and automation are rapidly becoming a crucial area. Enterprise AI is fast-becoming a crowded space – so when a company like ours has a global product with Cambridge roots, investors can really see the size of the opportunity, meaning that attracting the funding necessary to scale up is not difficult. Cybersecurity, in particular, is one of the greatest challenges of our age, and advances in Cyber AI are nothing short of transformative.
What do you think your place or region should be known for when it comes to tech businesses?
Cambridge should be known for the leading role it has already played in breeding billion-dollar unicorn companies like our own. These companies are changing the world as we know it by thinking boldly and thinking differently. Diversity is a key part of this. Cambridge often brings together brilliant ideas from all over the world.
External support for founders
Our curated picks of support for founders in the East of England
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