Northern Investment Index

Tracking investment trends in Northern tech businesses

Investment in Northern tech continues to thrive

2017 was the strongest year on record for Northern tech investment – a total of £432m was raised with 113 individual deals made, according to the Tech North Investment Index report.

The future of the tech sector in the North of England is looking positive based on these findings.

Northern growth

Based on these numbers, year on year investment has grown 2090% over the 2007-17 period. Deal number has increased roughly 910% over the same time. These are all great new stories for the North, but the key is to maintain this growth pace to ensure the region is challenging the best in Europe.

The draw of Manchester and Cheshire is evident when analysing the data. The region’s investment growth, spearheaded by firms such as The Hut Group, has seen a disproportionate amount of capital invested relative to the population size. For some this is a worry, but other believe we should focus growth around Manchester Airport and the transport links that it provides.

To put it in perspective, Manchester now has the highest economic growth in the country. In contrast, North East growth is lowest at 1.2%. Manchester and Cheshire regularly take over 50% of investment every year. The chart below depicts these figures over the past ten years.

The future

This has been the most impressive year for tech investment across the North of England since records began. It bodes well for the future, and continues to alleviate brexit fears. Northern tech investment growth now sits alongside some of the largest economies in Europe. Tech North will be monitoring how this progresses throughout 2018 – watch this space.

Data was sourced from Pitchbook, Beauhurst and other manual web scraping tools. It is intended to offer a guide on trends in the digital technology sector in the North of England, and is for general information only. This may not include every digital technology deal in the region during the period.

Data was cleansed to remove any companies not classed by Tech North as a digital tech company. The data includes all VC stages, private equity growth/expansion, and ‘corporate’ deals. It does not include M&A deals, IPOs, liquidity or buyout deals.

This report is published for general information only. Although high standards have been used in the data sourcing, analysis, views and projections presented in this report, no responsibility or liability can be accepted by Tech North for any loss or damage resultant from any use of, reliance on or reference to the content of this document.

Past figures may fluctuate as further information is published and sourced. Deals of less than £0.5 million are excluded from the analyses. 

Overall cumulative investment shows how growth is increasing exponentially.