South East

Discover events, stories and useful resources in your local tech cluster

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

We don’t have an EEM in the South East for you to contact yet, but that will be changing very soon.

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

Email – info@technation.io

South East in stats

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

31.94Digital tech turnover (£bn)

38,530Digital tech business count

215,000Employment in digital tech

184Digital 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: Reading – Southampton – Brighton – Oxford
Case studies: Reading – Southampton – Brighton – Oxford

Reading

Louize Clarke, founder, Connect TVT and Grow@GreenPark

Opportunities?

Previous Tech Nation reports have highlighted talent shortages. We’re starting to see more initiatives coming through to address this locally, such as Activate Learning announcing it’s part of a successful bid to develop a new Institute of Digital Technology (IoT), leading to significant investment at its Oxford and Reading campuses.

Challenges?

Proximity to London and Oxford means competition for talent is fierce, and with both easily accessible via transport links we’re definitely seeing skills migrating away from the town. At the same time, the Crossrail connection has ensured that price per sq foot on office space remains high. Whilst we’ve made significant progress to create a more connected tech ecosystem in the last year, there’s still a way to go for Reading.

Southampton

Peter Birkett, CEO, Southampton Science Park

Opportunities?

Opportunities that exist here are very much around the sorts of things that are the planks of the government’s industrial strategy. Areas include the intelligent manipulation of data and what I’d call environmental improvements – such as battery tech applicable to electric cars – and muscular-skeletal medicine.

Challenges?

One of the things about the south coast is that it’s not Oxford, Cambridge or London. As a consequence of that, it generally speaking has a low profile and is difficult for startups to access funding without travelling further afield. The region is rich in tech innovation and startups, but it somehow manages to remain under the radar of people.

Brighton

Lars Hyland, Chief Learning Officer, Totara

Opportunities?

Brighton has a powerful blend of tech and creative talent that already represents the future skills and collaborative practices demanded in the wider workplace. As a place to work it offers stimulating career opportunities and is fertile ground for ambitious startups. As a place to live, nothing beats it.

Challenges?

Brighton is growing more popular, so investment is needed in infrastructure, work and living spaces. Digital businesses are growing in confidence, capability and scale. Government policy makers should take note and provide the necessary support to accelerate development and global awareness of what is a true centre of excellence.

Oxford

Mark Larkin, CEO, Vitaccess

Being based in the centre of Oxford is ideal for us. The creative buzz of the city and the access to university hospitals and other businesses is a great asset for the development of the company. It is also an easy-to-get-to destination for our potential clients and the team loves working there. Clients love coming to Oxford too – it’s more fun than staying in faceless chain hotels!

In funding news, Ascential acquired Reading-based Brand View, a provider of price and promotion analytics for manufacturers and retailers, for approximately £38m.

Other acquisitions include Invenias, Emulate 3D and Geode Networks Europe, all for undisclosed amounts. An additional £50m was raised by scaling tech businesses, among them, BetterPoints, Fiscal Technologies, Opsview and TrackerSense.

BMI Group, the largest manufacturer of flat and pitched roofing solutions throughout Europe, opened its new Technology Hub in the town centre. The company’s multi-million-pound investment in technology and people reflects the Group’s intention to build a sophisticated centre for innovation with 160 tech and business experts.

In November, the Festival of Digital Disruption set out to inspire the next generation on all things tech. Run in partnership with Henley Business School and Reading UK, the three-day town-hall takeover included talks from entrepreneurs, founders and tech leaders. The festival culminated in a schools fash-tech challenge, aiming to encourage creative students to embrace the world of tech.

Starling Bank has opened a new office on Southampton’s waterfront in Town Quay that will house 150 new employees working in engineering, customer service and operations.

Igloo, a provider of smart home energy devices that help customers manage the cost of their energy consumption using personalised data insights, has raised more than €690k in an equity crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs.

Newly founded ISP toob announced plans to provide more than 100,000 homes and businesses across Southampton with 1Gbps fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband, the fastest in the country, by the end of 2021.

Historic strengths in Brighton’s games and digital learning have helped spawn a vibrant immersive technology cluster, the third largest in the UK, driven by companies like Make Real and Curiscope. It has been supported by complementary expertise at the FuseBox Immersive Lab and the two local universities.

The 5G Brighton testbed at the FuseBox has grown its capacity to support the development of 5G applications and is now complemented by an additional testbed at the Brighton Dome performance venue.

Unity Technologies has further cemented its commitment to Brighton, taking possession of large new-build office development in the city centre.

The Platf9rm coworking space has launched additional high-quality co-working space in the city, adding to the available resources for startups and scaling tech businesses locally.

Oxford’s tech sector is closely connected to both universities (the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University), which support companies at all stages of growth, from idea to startup or spin-out. Student-led entrepreneurship societies and networks are also an active and critical component of this well-established ecosystem.

Nightstar Therapeutics was sold to US multinational biotech company Biogen for $800m in March. Owned by life sciences investor Sycona, the company helps patients suffering from rare inherited retinal diseases.

Nightstar went from University of Oxford spin-out to IPO in just four years and marked the third-biggest exit by a UK biotech company in two decades. The university has spun out 24 companies in the last year alone and has 181 spin-outs in total, both of which are UK records.

The BioEscalator, funded by the government’s City Deal (as part of a group of 4 innovation centres in Oxfordshire) and the university, opened its doors last year to support companies that are early-stage, innovative and based on high-quality science with the potential to make a significant positive impact on healthcare.

Terry Pudwell, CEO, Assuria

About Assuria

From its offices on the campus of Reading University, Assuria develops and markets a government-grade portfolio of cybersecurity monitoring and defence software solutions and managed services to a world customer base.

Year founded

2005

Why Reading?

Reading in itself is a fantastic technology hub, close to London, with a strong skills base, great University, excellent facilities of every kind, and for a company like Assuria with clients in many countries, it’s proximity to Heathrow airport is a massive advantage.

National and international focus

UK wide client base and a growing global base of clients in the US, UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Japan and Hong Kong. New regions being explored right now include the whole ASEAN region, Australia, Nepal, Canada and Nordic.

Alistair Barrow, Director, Generic Robotics

About Generic Robotics

Generic Robotics work at the interface of humans and robots, specialising in “haptics” – technologies which replicate the sense of touch when interacting with the digital world.

Year founded

2010

Investment Raised

£1.7m

Why reading?

I completed a BSc then PhD at the University of Reading then established Generic Robotics with four very talented colleagues, originally as an R&D consultancy before moving on to commercialising our in-house IP. When expanding, we spent quite some time looking for the ideal location, only to discover the University itself was able to provide affordable office space which grew as we did and a landlord understanding of the growing pains that come with start-up life. Along with our existing connections in Reading, the excellent transport links and facilities it made sense to grow the company right here.

National and international focus

While the potential applications of our technologies are broad, our current focus and passion is healthcare education, something which does not recognise borders.

Jonathan Barrowman, founder and CEO, Gorilla In The Room

About Gorilla In The Room

We’re an immersive technology company which develops AR and VR products for the market research industry. We formed around the challenge that 85% of new consumer goods fail despite $8.9bn spent on consumer research. Our award-winning mobile research platform addresses this by immersing consumers in the real world to predict their purchase decisions.

Year founded

2016

Why Brighton?

The founding team have lived here for years however, because we’re so different, we probably wouldn’t have met if we lived elsewhere. Brighton celebrates diversity and this unique mix of liberal arts, technology and creativity is the reason we got together in the first place. I recently found out that Silicon Valley’s perfect founding team is apparently a Geek, a Suit and a Hippie – which is a happy coincidence.

National and international focus

We’ve got a long way to go before we’ve saturated the UK market however enquiries from North America and other countries in Europe have led to our tech being deployed in multiple markets. I’ve been in global roles before so our ambition is definitely to scale beyond the British Isles.

Hannah Dawson, CEO, Futrli

About Futrli

Futrli exists to help small businesses succeed: positively impacting families, communities and economies globally.

Year founded

2016

Investment raised

£4m

Why Brighton?

The real answer is because I fell in love with my husband who lived here! But fortuitously, Brighton is an amazing melting pot of bright minds and innovation. Our 80-strong team here are going from strength to strength and we’re sending the Brighton vibe to the other offices we have in Belfast, Sydney, Melbourne and Australia.

National and international focus

We’ve been international from day one. Launching in Sydney almost 5 years ago, our ANZ market is fantastic. The UK and ANZ are our core markets, but we are moving more aggressively into the US now and seeing fantastic results.

Hugh Lloyd-Jukes, CEO, Oxehealth

About Oxehealth

Oxehealth’s Digital Care Assistant helps nurses and carers reduce injuries, improve the patient experience & operate more efficiently. Our contact-free secure optical sensor & SaaS software generate alerts to risky activity, allow medically certified spot-checks of pulse rate and breathing rate and generate objective reports on activity and sleep.

Year founded

2012

Why Oxford?

We were founded by Professor Lionel Tarassenko, Head of Engineering in the Department of Engineering at the University of Oxford, in partnership with Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. We’ve stayed close to our roots!

National and international focus

Our solution is currently contracted to 17% of English Mental Health Trusts, three UK care home providers, police and prison customers. We also operate in Sweden, where we serve care home customers. We plan to expand further internationally in the coming year.

Leah Thompson, Manager, Enterprising Oxford

About Enterprising Oxford

Enterprising Oxford is a University of Oxford initiative to help encourage, support and promote entrepreneurship within the University by collaborating and connecting with Oxfordshire-linked businesses and supporters. We work with partners across Oxfordshire to strengthen and support the ecosystem by connecting companies to the resources (people, places, opportunities) they need to grow.

Why Oxford?

We have new science and medical innovation centres and developments that are full before opening. An increasing number of companies want to grow in Oxford, ensuring expertise and talented employees will always be essential. Social enterprise continues to flourish, with new funding opportunities, and support provided from both Universities and organisations such as Oxfordshire Social Entrepreneurship Partnership (OSEP).

Challenges in Oxford?

Finding space in the city as a new startup or spinout can be a challenge. In addition, as more companies spin out of the University and the ecosystem continues to expand, the demand for talented people, affordable housing and efficient transport will also need to be met.

Andy Dolin, COO, Tonic Analytics

About Tonic Analytics

We’re a B2B data analytics company. Our innovative red.thread® technology uses digital twins, big data and advanced predictive analytics to enable critical client outcomes – from saving lives to reducing airline delays; and from reducing crime to optimising offshore oil production. Our global clients come from public and private sectors.

Year founded

2015

Why Southampton?

Southampton has a long history of using advanced technology to solve real world challenges. Our own roots are in aerospace – a sector in which Southampton has a proud history of innovation. In this digital age, our location at Southampton Science Park is providing us with the essential network of talent and support to solve new challenges.

National and international focus

We operate worldwide, with over 80% of our revenue coming from export. Our people, technology and services are all located in Southampton, UK. Our home market is also our main platform for developing and proving technology solutions that can be deployed globally.

Latest news from the region

Enter the archive

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.

We’re currently building out our list of meetups and networks in the South East. If you have a suggestion, let us know!

Oxford – Oxford Startups
Oxford – Enterprising Oxford events calendar

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. It’s a great way to build out your network, find people to collaborate with and discover the best tech events. We’ve highlighted some of the best co-working spaces in the region.

Have a suggestion for this section? Let us know

Skills support

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

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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 other types of finance, we’ve picked out a range of investors, funds and support networks in the region.

Have a suggestion for this section? Let us know