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Ipswich

Mature cluster with £250 million digital tech turnover

£250 mDigital tech business turnover (2017)
MatureDominant distribution of businesses by age (2017)
£88 kDigital tech turnover by employee (2017)
56Digital tech business births (2016)
£372 mGVA
(2017)
2,852Jobs in digital tech
(2017)
14,715Digital tech jobs
(2017)

Developments

Telecoms continue to take centre stage in Ipswich, with a lively community based around BT’s Global Research & Development centre, Adastral Park. BT employs 3,000 people on the park, while a further 98 high tech companies are based there too. New facilities and support networks furthering the ambitions of entrepreneurs in the city, accelerating its innovation.

  • BT and Facebook are joining forces to open a UK hub for developing next-generation telecoms technology. It’s part of the global Telecom Infra Project (TIP) initiative that aims to shake up the traditional approach to building and deploying telecoms network infrastructure. The ‘ecosystem acceleration centres’, one of which will be based at BT’s Adastral Park, will host startups backed by a £135 million London investment fund.
  • The University of Suffolk launched the Suffolk Centre for Female Entrepreneurship in October 2017. The centre supports female entrepreneurs to succeed with events and  networking opportunities plus advice on funding opportunities and business growth. The centre will also carry out research into female entrepreneurship, contributing to policy and initiatives at a local, national and international level.
  • New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership has launched its Digital Tech Skills Plan which is  designed to meet the demands of the digital tech sector in the East of England where an expected 10,000 skilled tech roles will be needed in Suffolk and Norfolk by 2024. TechEast will deliver the plan in conjunction with a Digital Tech Skills Taskforce.

Neil Miles

CEO, Inawisdom

About Inawisdom
Inawisdom is a leading Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning (ML) specialist. We enable our customers to outperform the market by discovering value from their data assets.

Why Ipswich?
The combination of our head office and development centre which are part of the Innovation Martlesham Technology Cluster near Ipswich, plus our London office providing direct access to the epicentre of UK industry and commerce is key to our success.

National & International focus
Inawisdom is a ‘cloud-first’ organisation allowing us to work effectively across the UK and beyond. Our agile ‘Discovery as a Service’ (DaaS) consulting approach and our ‘Rapid Analytics Machine Learning Platform’ (RAMP) enables collaborative working with customers across multiple locations.

Founded: 2016

Chris Waters

Chief Product Officer, Staylists

About Staylists
Staylists operates white-label hotel booking sites for big brands, national publishers, and renowned tourism organisations. Our partners use their marketing muscle to encourage their customers to book – and enjoy a slice of commission on every booking in return. Meanwhile, the hotels and B&Bs on our platform reap the rewards of wider distribution and a jam-packed diary.

Why Ipswich?
Adastral Park, Ipswich, is home to BT’s R&D labs, and is therefore brimming with innovation. A startup like ours benefits from the networking opportunities on campus, the watertight security, and the arguably unrivalled access to knowledge. We’re within striking distance of London, as well as Suffolk’s glorious coast and countryside. We also benefit from the talent coming out of Cambridge, Norwich and Ipswich.

National & International focus
The majority of our team are based in Suffolk, and we’re delighted to have employees in both London and Canada – the latter meaning we can offer customer support into the early GMT hours. We work closely with many local businesses, but our fantastic selection of quality hotels, inns and B&Bs spans the whole of the UK. Nevertheless, we’re keen to grow our inventory to include properties across the globe, and are constantly on the lookout for international brands with whom we can partner.

Founded: 2017

Raised: £3.5m 

Popular meetups in Ipswich

616 members

Suffolk Developers

537 members

SyncIpswich

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 Ipswich startups say is a strength

1Appealing area
2Proximity to a university
3Helpful tech community

What Ipswich startups say is a challenge

1Access to talent
2Limited infrastructure
3Bad transport links

Tech Nation 2018 is now open!

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