Tech Nation Solar logo
  • Home
  • Programmes

    Growth Programmes

    If you’re a tech entrepreneur, be it aspiring, scaling or late stage, we have a growth stage or sector programme.

    Early Stage

    Founders’ Network

    Rising Stars

    Mid Stage

    Upscale

    Late Stage

    Future Fifty

    Fintech

    Cyber

    Applied AI

    Net Zero

  • Resources

    Resources

    Whether you’re looking to learn digital skills, scale your company, or brush up on your tech industry knowledge, we have a resource for you. 

    Learning

    Digital Business Academy

    Guides

    Brexit guide

    Coronavirus support

    Government Resources

    Guide to AI

    Scaling Guide

    Scaleup Glossary

    Panels

    LawtechUK

    Fintech Delivery Panel

    Insurtech Board

    Support

    International Expansion

    Fintech collaboration toolkit

    Insurtech Standards

  • Reports

    Reports

    Data and insights on UK and global tech, all year round.

    Scale Ratio 2021

    The Tech Nation Visa Report 2020

    Unlocking Global Tech Report 2020

    Tech Nation Report 2020

    Jobs and Skills Report 2020

    Net Zero Report 2020

    A Bright Tech Future report

    The Unicorn Update

    Data Commons

    Tech for Social Good

  • Visa

    Visas

    Enabling tech talent from around the world to come and work in the UK.

    Tech Nation Visa

    Alumni Network

  • UK regions

    UK regions

    Supporting the tech communities across the UK.

    East of England

    North West

    Northern Ireland

    London

    South East

    Scotland

    Midlands

    South West

    Wales

    North East

    Yorkshire

  • News
  • Events
  • About us

    About us

    Find out about our mission, how we’re going to achieve it, and the people making it happen.

    Alumni

    Partnerships

    Press

    Jobs

    Contact Us

    Fintech Delivery Panel

×

Belfast

Startup ecosystem with 143% increase in digital business births from 2011 to 2016

  • Introduction and foreword
  • Key findings
  • International
  • Digital tech business
  • Community perceptions
  • Collaboration
  • Jobs and skills
  • Recommendations
  • Methodology
  • Community partners
  • Belfast
  • Birmingham
  • Bournemouth
  • Brighton
  • Bristol
  • Cambridge
  • Cardiff
  • Dundee
  • Edinburgh
  • Exeter
  • Glasgow
  • Hull
  • Ipswich
  • Leeds
  • Leicester
  • Liverpool
  • London
  • Manchester
  • Middlesbrough
  • Newcastle
  • Norwich
  • Nottingham
  • Oxford
  • Plymouth
  • Reading
  • Sheffield
  • Southampton
  • Sunderland
  • Truro & Redruth
  • Worcester & Malvern
£875 mDigital tech business turnover (2017)
StartupDominant distribution of businesses by age (2017)
£98 kDigital tech turnover by employee (2017)

97Digital tech business births (2016)
8,970Jobs in digital tech (2017)

Developments

Belfast’s colleges and universities, its strong digital tech community and low cost of living continue to attract – and grow – tech companies. This year, a new co-working space, a landmark pre-accelerator programme and emerging animation scene all testify to that.

  • Ormeau Baths, a co-working space and tech community, opened its doors in an historic former bathhouse in the heart of Belfast in July 2017. The campus helps the brightest and best tech startups to access new networks, funding and expertise, giving them the tools to flourish. It was founded by entrepreneurs Jon Bradford, Mark Dowds, Aaron Taylor and Steve Pette. They had the support of tech leaders from across Northern Ireland’s digital diaspora, including FanDuel’s Nigel Eccles and Sarah Friar of Square.
  • In January 2018, Invest NI appointed Ignite 100 to run and operate Propel, its pre-accelerator programme, until 2022. Supporting a wide range of companies including NEON, it is the only accelerator of its kind running in Northern Ireland and is a landmark tech development in the city.
  • Titanic Studios, where Game of Thrones is based, has expanded. Thanks to support from Northern Ireland Screen, a burgeoning film and animation scene is developing in the city. Startups to watch include Enter Yes.

Philip McAleese

Co-founder & CEO, See.Sense

About See.Sense
See.Sense is a cycling technology and data company that helps make cycling safer and cities smarter.  Our patented, connected products use advanced sensor technology and AI to improve cyclist safety, while crowdsourcing data and insights for cities.

Why Belfast?
We chose to base our business here due to Belfast’s fantastic talent pool and lower cost of living.  We are also able to manufacture our product locally, and there is great camaraderie between entrepreneurs here.

National & International focus
We have customers in over 70 countries worldwide and from the outset we have been globally focused. We have run smart cycling data projects in Australia and Ireland, as well as the UK and have presence at international events such Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and VeloCity Global in Taipei.

Founded: 2013

Raised: £711k

Dr Jason McKeown

CEO, Neurovalens

About Neurovalens
Neurovalens uses neuroscience to help improve lives. We are based in Belfast, Northern Ireland and at the University of California San Diego’s Brain & Cognition Centre. Modius is the company’s first product; it helps people get lean by targeted neural stimulation – it changes what we can all be in athletic terms.

Why Belfast?
Belfast has the best people, the best talent and the best craic.

Founded: 2015

Raised: £1.5m 

Popular meetups in Belfast

1,408 Members

Bash!

1,299 Members

DevOps Belfast

991 Members

IoT Belfast

We have clustered Belfast meetups according to their topics. Meetups with similar topics are attracted, whilst meetups with different subjects are repelled. A full screen version can be found here. Click on a node, or search for a topic in the full screen version.  

We have clustered Belfast meetups according to their topics. Meetups with similar topics are attracted, whilst meetups with different subjects are repelled. Please view this page on desktop to use the visualisation interactively.

Belfast meetup clusters: Software Development Emerging Technology Open Source Web Design

loaded

Source: Tech Nation, 2018; Meetup.com, 2018. Thanks to the Oxford Internet Institute and JSIC

The size of each node is determined by the number of connections it has with others. A large node signifies a highly connected meetup with many topics shared with other groups.

Community perceptions survey findings

The Tech Nation 2018 Survey was conducted between January 2018 and February 2018, in partnership with Streetbees. This year’s survey received the largest response yet from members of the UK tech community. In a total of 3,428 submissions, people told us about the opportunities and challenges their local ecosystems face, and the digital tech leaders they admire. The majority of respondents (33%) were founders and CEOs.

What Belfast startups say is a strength

1Access to funding
2Helpful tech community
3Proximity of large tech companies

What Belfast startups say is a challenge

1Access to funding
2Access to talent
3Local government

Who Belfast startups say is influential

Tom Gray

CTO, Kainos

About you
I have worked in the Digital Industry for 30 years starting as a Software Engineer. I am currently privileged to lead Digital Catapult Northern Ireland and be CTO of Kainos Group. I am also involved in community activities like the BelTech conference that I curate every year.

Unique to Belfast?
Our relatively small scale, combined with the density of highly capable talent means that you’re never more than one step away from the perfect person to hire, to mentor you, provide seed funding, or to make that critical introduction.

Strengths & Challenges
The quality of our digital talent is genuinely excellent, and the long-standing adoption of a mandatory Placement Year in industry as part of degree programmes has been a real differentiator over other parts of UK. However, there is never enough available talent and the education pipeline doesn’t prepare the next generation with the skills required. Given our scale, Belfast can’t be good at everything so we should, collectively, reflect on our areas of genuine, defensible strength and focus our strategic activities and investments on these.

Tech Nation 2018 is now open!

Great news. All data featured in the 2018 Tech Nation Report is available online for non-commercial use by third parties.  The data can be accessed through the data.world platform. If you use the data, please let us know. We would love to showcase your work.

If you'd like know why we are doing this, check out our blog.

Share this page

Next cluster

Birmingham

Address

Registered Address (not office):
Tech Nation
20-22 Wenlock Road,
London,
N1 7GU.

Sections

  • Home
  • Growth Programmes
  • Resources
  • Insights
  • Visa
  • News & Events
  • About us
  • Contact us
  • UK network
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms
  • Cookies
  • Press

Become a partner

If you’d like to become a commercial partner or sponsor, we have a range of programmes, reports, events and campaigns you could get involved in.

Find out more.

Advertise with us

Leverage our tech network and collaborate with us to build your brand story. We’ll work with you to develop the perfect package for your business.

Find out more.

© Copyright 2020, Tech Nation. All rights reserved.

Tech Nation logo
×

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in Settings.

Tech Nation logo
Powered by GDPR plugin
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

3rd Party Cookies

Analytical/performance cookies: These help us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.

Functionality cookies: These enable us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences.

Targeting cookies: These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!

Cookie Policy

More information about our Cookie Policy