£2m tech hub to launch in Leeds

The digital sector in Leeds has been given a major boost following the announcement that a £2m technology hub is to launch in the city centre later this year.

The hub is one of four projects in the sector that have been awarded a cut of nearly £2.7m in funding.

The Tech Hub will be based at Platform above Leeds railway station and will offer a state-of-the-art central resource which digital projects from across the city can use and feed into.

It will provide new and existing digital businesses with access to 410 desks in both co-working and small office environments, event spaces and meeting areas, all backed up with help to grow and find finance for tech companies.

The announcement follows the launch of a Leeds Tech Hub Fund last year which was introduced as a catalyst for the growth and expansion of the city’s digital sector. After an application process was opened offering businesses the chance to bid for grant support from the fund, projects put forward by four companies, Bruntwood, East Street Arts, Leeds Open Data Institute and GameMakers have been recommended for approval.

Aswell as the Tech Hub, the projects announced in the first round are:

● East Street Arts ‘BEETA’ – £550,000 to promote with partners Invisible Flock, Leeds as a unique global location for creative digital projects and businesses and linking tech to the city’s dynamic international artistic offer. This will support the city’s European Capital of Culture 2023 bid.

● An investment of £100,000 in the ‘Leeds Open Data Institute’, linking tech growth with the wider cultural offer in Quarry Hill. This will increase their capacity to support start-ups, events and collaborative projects.

● Funding of £36,646.52 to support ‘GameMakers’, which will offer specialist game development hardware in order to assist computer game start-ups accelerate their growth.

The development of the Leeds Tech Hub was provided from £3.7m of funding from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

Cllr James Lewis, Leeds City Council’s executive member for resources and strategy, said: “It was no surprise that the bids we received for funding from our Tech Hub fund to help support a variety of innovative new projects in the city were of such a high standard given the exceptional quality of our ever growing digital sector.

“While it was therefore a very difficult decision, I am delighted to announce that we are now in a position to announce that four bids by Bruntwood, East Street Arts, Leeds Open Data Institute and GameMakers were successful. In allocating nearly £2.7m in total from our fund, this will be used to support the launch of these projects and many different aspects of the digital sector by providing more facilities and the right environment for new and existing businesses to build and prosper.”