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Norwich

Over 11k active tech meetup group members

£211 mDigital tech business turnover (2017)
MatureDominant distribution of businesses by age (2017)
£70 kDigital tech turnover by employee  (2017)
73Digital tech business births (2016)
£395 mGVA
(2017)
3,027Jobs in the digital tech sector (2017)
13,411Digital tech jobs
(2017)

Developments

This cathedral city is abuzz with tech activity. Dynamic meetups are stimulating grassroots activity across all parts of its tight-knit tech sector. The University of East Anglia and Norwich University of the Arts are also playing important roles in stimulating the action.

  • Step Into Tech goes from strength to strength, bringing parents, educators, employers and tech specialists together to help young people explore the exciting world of digital technology. It also works with young coders and makers to help them develop valuable skills for the future. Its highly successful Young Makers Tech Club for under-18s is now looking to expand into surrounding areas, including Suffolk.
  • The digital accelerator TechVelocity aims to double the size of the Digital Economy in Norwich by 2020. The accelerator scheme helps businesses through mentoring, introductions to investors and by channelling them towards public funding. Its current cohort includes Assemble.FM, Landapp.com, Commercity and Protu.
  • The universities of East Anglia, Essex and Kent have been awarded £4.7 million of UK Government Industrial Strategy funding. The aim is to support business innovation across the East of England’s artificial intelligence, digital creative and agri-tech sectors. Funding will target collaborations between universities and businesses, with a view to improving productivity and regional economic growth.  

Callum Coombes

CEO, Safepoint

About Safepoint
Safepoint is a web and mobile software as a service platform that allows employers to ensure the safety of their lone workers and stay compliant with today’s health and safety regulations.

Why Norwich?
Norwich has an incredibly active tech community, which has welcomed us enthusiastically, and supported us throughout our development. The universities and local businesses are also strongly invested in ensuring that startup’s such as ours have access to all the resources they need to grow.

National & International focus
As Safepoint is a young company, we are very focused on the East Anglia area. Through networking events held by Norwich tech community groups, such as SyncNorwich, NorDev and Hot Source, we have been able to build some great connections across Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. This has allowed us to find many likeminded individuals that have reached out to us to become mentors.

Founded: 2017 

Jacyn Heavens

CEO, Epos Now

About Epos Now
Epos Now is an award-winning point of sale software and hardware provider committed to providing industry-leading point-of-sale technology to SMEs in the retail sector and hospitality sectors.

Why Norwich?
Property and salary costs are considerably lower than in the capital and yet London is only a short commute away. The University of East Anglia, which is based in Norwich, has also proved to be a valuable partner for Epos Now, with over half of our software department UEA alumni.

National & International focus
Epos Now is a global company. Having established the US arm of our operation in 2016, we have sales and support function on both sides of the Atlantic. We work with our integration partners, merchant service providers and resellers network across the globe to ensure our customers have access to industry-leading tech.

Founded: 2011

Popular meetups in Norwich

1,523 members

SyncNorwich

1,163 members

Norfolk Developers

1,044 members

Hot Source Norwich

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 Norwich startups say is a strength

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

What Norwich startups say is a challenge

1Limited Infrastructure
2Access to talent
3Bad transport links

Who Norwich startups say is influential

John Fagan

CTO, Axon Vibe

About you
I have a history in location data and technology, having worked at multimap.com, bing maps and now Axon Vibe.  Axon Vibe build mobile location solutions to power the biggest disruption in transport (known as Transport-as-a-Service).  I also co-founded and chair SyncNorwich – Tech & Startup Community.

Unique to Norwich?
We have a highly connected, passionate and engaged tech & creative community, that spans across private, public, education and research sectors.  Norwich really is a great place to work and live. I reluctantly moved here 14 years ago, and quickly fell in love with the city, region and fine people.

Strengths & Challenges
We should growth hack Norwich.  Attracting talent to the region, and make investors aware of what’s happening here.  We need to build on our connected community and collectively resource joint efforts to promote, engage and seamlessly on board talent from outside the region.  Make people aware what we have to offer, why they should consider leaving the rat race and joining a high tech startup along with a high quality of life.

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