North West

Find support and useful resources, make new contacts and discover events in your local community

Read Mo’s Q&A
Email: moaldalou@technation.io
Social media: Twitter – LinkedIn

Our Entrepreneur Engagement Managers (EEMs) are helping to build a national network of ambitious tech entrepreneurs.

I’m Mo Aldalou, your EEM on the ground in the North West.

I want to do everything I can to shine a light on the North West’s most ambitious tech startups. As a former journalist I understand that every entrepreneur has a story worth telling.

This page is your directory to help you find the best resources available in the region. Contact me for help with plugging into our UK-wide entrepreneur network, applying for Tech Nation’s growth programmes, and everything inbetween.

Tweets by tn_northwest

North West in stats

For more stats on UK tech, discover Tech Nation report 2019

4.98Digital tech turnover (£bn)

13,665Digital tech business count

88,000Employment in digital tech

99Digital tech productivity per worker (£000s)

From the community

Click the headings below to hear from community leaders, read the latest ecosystem developments and view founder case studies

Community insight
Developments: Manchester – Liverpool
Case studies: Manchester – Liverpool

Manchester

Naomi Timperley, cofounder, Tech North Advocates

Why Manchester?

Manchester has an amazing network of people who are prepared to help and support startups. We genuinely want our city to be a place where you can start and scale a business – and there really is so much support to back this up. Our universities are innovative and active within the community and our culture of mentoring is growing.

Challenges?

There is still the question of when will we produce our next new tech giant. Can this be done in Manchester? Are we selling ourselves as a city for innovation and entrepreneurial prowess to the outside world well? We also need to extract the all too familiar habit of some who, rather than proving their substance as a business, feel the need to use smoke and mirrors, which is then facilitated by poor journalism and lack of due diligence when it comes to awards. Let’s be honest and proven before we shout from the rooftops.

Liverpool

Andy Kent, CEO, Angel Solutions

Why Liverpool?

Liverpool is a hive of creativity. It’s full to the brim of passionate people, who both love their city and produce amazing work – which naturally transpires to a supportive community with a huge ‘can-do’ attitude. You can see that demonstrated in the city’s recent success stories – the Baltic Triangle and Paddington Village to name a few, along with home-grown businesses who are trading internationally.

Challenges?

As is the case with most cities, continuing to bridge the gap between public and private sector remains a challenge. We’re really great at investing in buildings, but what we need now is a shift in focus towards people and building communities. Ultimately, it’s vital that we equip entrepreneurs and leaders with the skills, training and resources they need – both now, and in the future.

It’s also important that we look at existing projects that are successful at grassroots level, and help them to scale, rather than always looking to create something new. We need to continue to celebrate and champion the fabulous opportunities that exist here in Liverpool, outside of the city. If we can look to pool our resources and reduce any silo mentality, it will enable the city to scale as one, as it certainly has no issues with thinking or dreaming big.

Amazon has confirmed plans to open a major new office in Manchester in 2019, creating 600 new technology and research jobs. The ecommerce giant is taking six storeys in the historic Hanover House building, which is now part of the £800 million NOMA development.

Online travel giant Booking.com outlined plans to invest £100 million in creating a new global transport hub in Manchester. The company is set to be an anchor tenant at Allied London’s £1bn St John’s Quarter development and will consolidate its four existing offices into the new site.

Co-working space giant WeWork has recently committed to opening its fifth location in Manchester. The company, which currently has two operational locations with an additional two in the pipeline, announced it is leasing the entire space at Hyphen on Mosley Street and will be welcoming over 1,000 new members over 13 floors in the first quarter of 2020.

Listed telecoms giant TalkTalk reaffirmed its commitment to Greater Manchester by announcing that it will relocate its national headquarters from London to Salford, with hundreds of employees relocating to the company’s Soapworks site in Salford Quays.

Meanwhile, greeting cards online retailer Moonpig created its first ‘technology hub’ at No. 1 Spinningfields; price comparison giant Moneysupermarket has agreed to take two floors in the same building; and bet365 unveiled plans to expand its Manchester footprint, creating 100 new tech jobs in the region.

Plans for a 222km core full-fibre network and series of digital exchanges throughout the City Region are developing apace, while the success of Liverpool’s 5G testbed – Europe’s first dedicated 5G health and social care pilot – has led to the award of DCMS continuation funding.

Sensor City – one of the world’s only innovation hubs dedicated to the development and application of sensors/IoT technology – has welcomed six new tenants in the first quarter of 2019 alone. More than 230 businesses have benefited from the LCR 4.0 project driving the adopting of digitisation of industry and leading to Made Smarter,where Liverpool makes up part of the North West pilot of this national scheme.

The Baltic Triangle continues to thrive with Baltic Creative CIC investing £3m in a new Digital House supporting up to 50 companies and launching the ‘Space’ accelerator supporting 30 new start-ups. Knowledge Quarter Liverpool, already home to global players in science, health, technology, culture and education, is set for major expansion with over £1bn of new developments already underway – including Paddington Village and the Fabric District.

In tandem, Sci-Tech Daresbury continues its expansion programme with a new building for an additional 150 staff. EPAM’s acquisition of Th_nk brings the global provider of digital platform engineering to Liverpool, while Matalan has made a significant investment in its eCommerce capability and built a new UX Lab in the heart of its Knowsley HQ.

Neil Andrew, MD, PPC Protect

About PPC Protect

PPC Protect is a fully-automated advertising fraud and click fraud prevention platform that helps to ensure advertiser spend is not being lost to fraudulent activity.

Why Manchester?

Two of our founders met while studying at the University of Manchester and we have made this our home ever since. The access to tech talent in the area is incredible, alongside the world-class transport links to Europe and beyond. Plus, the growing number of tech startups in the region makes it the perfect place to find like-minded founders or advisors.

National and international focus

Outside of our HQ in Bolton we also have offices in Nashville (USA), Tel Aviv (Israel) and Antwerp (Belgium), allowing us to pool talent from many different regions and offer a truly global service.

Lauren Riley, founder and CEO, The Link App

About The Link App

The Link App is an easy to use Professional to Client communication platform replacing email as a secure and feature-filled alternative. The Link App improves these relationships via our desktop app (or integration) for Law firms and a free mobile app and web portal for their clients, allowing them to track their case progress and communicate in a simple, convenient manner.

Why Manchester?

As a Northerner originally based in London, it made perfect sense to relocate the business back to the North when we were looking to expand and set up our head office. In recent years Manchester has seen some developments and investments being made within the technology sector, and I am passionate about it being seen as one of the most progressive cities in the UK in which to run a tech start up.

National and international focus

Outside of our Manchester HQ, we have a team of remote workers based in London and internationally. Our clients are predominantly UK based at the moment, but we do have clients in South Africa and we will look to expand our International sales over the next few years.

Anish Kapoor, CEO, AccessPay

About AccessPay

AccessPay is a cloud-based payments and cash management automation provider. It was conceived as a response to a payments landscape that was manual, costly and error-prone. The company is on a mission to develop powerful automation and AI tools that empower finance and treasury professionals with the intelligent tools they need to become more efficient, more secure and to deliver meaningful business insights.

Why Manchester?

Manchester is leading the way for digital in the UK, both through its burgeoning startup community, its investment in the next generation of developers and also the role of the city’s universities. We have been working closely with the academic community to deliver strides in AI across payments. We find their insight is valuable to the research and development work we are undertaking as we look to develop our services further.

National and international focus

We are very much part of a global community and at the forefront of real-time and cross border payment technology, actively working to develop a number of innovative products.

Tom McGillycuddy, cofounder, Tickr

About Tickr

Tickr is an impact investment app built for the next generation of investors. We are on a mission to prove that you can earn money and have a positive impact at the same time. Tickr gives you the ability to make impact investments, putting your money into companies that are intentionally generating social and environmental solutions alongside a financial return.

Why Liverpool?

Liverpool has an established financial services industry and a growing tech community which is the perfect combination for us. Being based in the Baltic Triangle puts us in the heart of the city’s digital and tech community. Liverpool is a thriving city and a great place to live and work. We are proud to be a northern fintech business and to continue the city’s long tradition of being a leader in the investment management industry.

National and international focus

Tickr has thousands of users across the UK and is seeing strong growth in all areas of the UK. We plan to expand internationally in 2020 and have already started exploring opportunities to partner with international banks in the Nordics and the EU.

Chelsea Slater, cofounder, InnovateHer

About InnovateHer

Our vision is to get girls ready for the tech industry, and the industry ready for girls. We equip girls aged 12-16 with the self-belief, confidence and skills to pursue a career in technology through our educational programme, while working with digital and tech companies to create inclusive workplaces for them to work within.

Why Liverpool?

Liverpool is home to a multicultural, diverse community who are passionate, collaborative and supportive of everything we’ve done since we started Liverpool Girl Geeks six years ago. The Baltic Creative is thriving with digital and tech companies who we call friends; we couldn’t have started anywhere else.

National and international focus

InnovateHer has big ambitions to scale internationally over the next couple of years alongside partners such as Sony, Shop Direct, LFC and more. Starting with Manchester and London, we’re introducing our schools programmes and company consultancy services to those wanting to start their tech education and diversity journey.

Anthony Young, cofounder, IQBlade

About IQBlade

IQBlade is a market intelligence platform for the technology channel. It allows vendors, distributors and resellers of all sizes to identify prospects or other partners of interest based on specific criteria. By collecting and analysing data from hundreds of different sources, the platform identifies highly relevant companies in a way that others cannot.

Why Liverpool?

Liverpool City Region is rapidly evolving, especially in the tech space. It is a vibrant city with a wealth of creative talent available. It is also a good commute, office space is reasonably priced and local businesses collaborate rather than compete.

National and international focus

Today, IQBlade mainly services the UK tech sector. However, the platform has been developed with global expansion in mind, so we are now looking for the right opportunity to expand our reach overseas.

Latest news from the region

Enter the archive

Support for founders

Meetups & networks

Research shows that collaborative tech ecosystems with thriving meetup scenes are more likely to succeed. As a founder, making the effort to get out to meetups and network events can lead to serendipitous encounters with people in the community who can give your business a boost.

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Greater Manchester – Manchester Digital
Greater Manchester – CodeUp

Manchester – Open:Data:Night
Manchester – Silicon Drinkabout
Manchester – Manchester Artificial Intelligence Meetup
Manchester – NetMcr
Manchester – Tech for Good Live
Manchester – Women in Technology North
Manchester – Digital NORTH
Manchester – Tech Manchester
Manchester – Bolton Business Growth and Entrepreneurship

Stockport – South Manchester Digital Network

Preston – #DigitalMeetupPreston

Lancaster – Code for Lancaster

Liverpool – Liverpool Tester Gathering
Liverpool – Creative Kitchen
Liverpool – Social Media Meetup
Warrington – WA Games

Co-working space

Co-working isn’t just about the free coffee – it’s a more flexible alternative to working out of traditional office space and brings the benefits of being part of a community. There’s no better way to build out your network, discover new routes to collaboration and learn the best tech events to attend. We’ve picked out some of the best co-working spaces in the region.

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Manchester – Accelerate Places
Manchester – All Work & Social – XYZ
Manchester – Altspace
Manchester – Ziferblat
Manchester – WeWork
Manchester – The Landing at Media City
Manchester – The Sharp Project
Manchester – Neo
Manchester – The Assembly
Manchester – Old Granada Studios (OGS)
Manchester – Work.Life
Manchester – MSP Tech Incubator
Manchester – Beehive Lofts
Manchester – Newtons of Bury
Manchester – Ashton Old Baths
Manchester – Lofthouse
Manchester – Huckletree
Stockport – Profolk
Wilmslow – Offism
Macclesfield – Digital Hive

Liverpool – AvenueHQ
Liverpool – Spaces Ropewalks
Liverpool – LAB by Capacity
Liverpool – Baltic Creative CIC
Liverpool – Basecamp Liverpool
Liverpool – Signature Works (Bling Bling Building)
Liverpool – Sensor City
Warrington – Opus

Nelson – Northlight

Preston – Cotton Court
Preston – Society1

Lancaster – The Storey

Skills support

From learning how to develop software to nailing the art of self-promotion, helping your team brush up on its digital and soft skills can be financially rewarding while reducing reliance on others. We’ve highlighted some of the best code clubs, incubators, accelerators, bootcamps and other support services in the region.

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Lancashire – Boost Business Lancashire
Lancashire – Investment Readiness
Lancashire – Digital Skills Partnership (Digital Lancashire)

Manchester – Barclays Eagle Lab
Manchester – MadLab
Manchester – Tech Returners
Manchester – Northcoders
Manchester – Code Nation
Manchester – Free Code Camp
Manchester – The Juice Academy
Manchester – Tech Manchester
Manchester – GC Business Growth Hub

Salford – Barclays Eagle Lab Salford
Salford – Launch @SalfordUni

Liverpool – Avenue HQ supported by Barclays Eagle Lab
Liverpool – InnovateHer
Liverpool – Agent Academy CIC
Liverpool – Liverpool John Moores University – Centre for Entrepreneurship
Liverpool – FDisruptors

Finance & investment

Securing finance and raising investment can be vital when it comes to taking your startup to the next level. Whether you’re seeking angel, VC or bank finance, we’ve picked out a range of investors, funds and support networks in the region.

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