Google chief: London can be leading hub for Europe’s tech start-ups

 
“Ingredients”: Eze Vidra (Pi
Miranda Bryant3 April 2014

London’s success on the tech start-up scene depends on forging links with other European hubs, according to the head of the capital’s Google Campus.

Eze Vidra said start-up hubs should “create bridges” to form one big hub across locations, instead of a single city trying to recreate Silicon Valley.

Factors such as talent and capital mean that London has “all the ingredients” to be Europe’s leading hub after “phenomenal” growth in the past two years, he said.

But he warned that it faces competition from Tel Aviv, which has the highest venture capitalist investment per capita globally, “cheap and sexy” Berlin and Stockholm, seen as the gateway to Scandinavia.

He made his comments after Campus, the internet giant’s centre for entrepreneurs near Old Street, celebrated its two-year anniversary last week.

Mr Vidra, whose full title is head of Google for Entrepreneurs and Campus London, said: “Everyone wants to recreate Silicon Valley — they have 60 years on us. Instead, we should create bridges between the hubs around Europe.”

He added that “London, in particular, has all the ingredients to be the leading European start-up hub, with favourable access to 1) talent, with some of the top universities in the world and lots of international talent, 2) capital — especially in the early stage angel funding, with very generous tax incentives for investors and a blooming crowdfunding environment and 3) other factors like connectivity, language and density of network which Campus has massively improved in the past two years”.

A number of start-ups have been successful in other parts of London — such as furniture retailer made.com which is based in Notting Hill, email marketing company DotMailer in Croydon and holiday rental booking site HouseTrip in Tottenham Court Road.

Mr Vidra said the key to London’s success will be “density”. He added: “You already see Clerkenwell, Shoreditch, Hackney connecting, the borders of Tech City are spreading. When we launched Campus there was nothing on Bonhill Street. Now there are three co-working spaces Central Working, The Hoxton Mix, Campus, and Moshi Monsters opposite. In addition you have another co-working space being built right on the roundabout.”

Silicon Roundabout has grown from about 200 firms two-and-a-half years ago to about 1,300 today.

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Research by Populus found that Campus membership has nearly tripled in a year from 10,000 to close to 30,000 today. More than 100 businesses work from the building every day.

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