Major investment to fuel tech platform
Mr Ladd Media
A host of announcements were made as Birmingham Tech Week kicked off at HSBC in Centenary Square, with several expert panels discussing how the West Midlands can become a globally recognised tech hub.
Spearheaded by Yiannis Maos MBE, the Founder & CEO of TechWM, Birmingham Tech Week is the UK’s largest regional tech festival and conference with more than 7,500 people attending events in the city this week.
CEO of HSBC Ian Stuart welcomed more than 100 business leaders to its headquarters, followed by a keynote speech from the Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street.
More than £14.7m is set to be invested by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) in bespoke training schemes designed to help meet the skills need generated by the region’s booming tech sector.
The Mayor said: “Our region’s tech sector is experiencing unprecedented growth, and we’re committed to harnessing this momentum to further nurture the skills base that underpins the long-term success of our tech ecosystem.
“This nearly £15 million in government investment will help us to create a vibrant landscape that supports tech start-ups, bolsters existing companies, and fosters innovation.
“Our ambition is to establish the West Midlands as a global tech powerhouse – generating economic opportunities, driving innovation, and ensuring our region plays a pivotal role in the digital revolution in the months and years ahead.”
Martin Ward
Mr Ladd Media
The re-launch of Tech Nation with £10bn to be invested over the next five years was followed up by a £1m commitment by Tech WM from the West Midlands Combined Authority’s Tech Commissioner Martin Ward, as well a £100k pledge to complete work to establish what the region needs the value proposition to be.
Tech WM is set to use funds to create a platform that will bolster the region’s tech ecosystem, as well as to scale up start-ups. Its Tech and Digital Advisory Board (a specific request from Mayor Andy Street) has seen the additions of Janet Coyle, Managing Director of London & Partners, Lord Kulveer Ranger of Northwood, SVP of Atos and Paul Faulkner, chief of staff at the Richardson family business to drive forward support, skills and funding respectively.
A new hub will also open in the iCentrum building on the Innovation Birmingham campus near year.
Citing the tech powerhouse Silicon Valley, Ward said its tech ecosystem is the “secret sauce” behind its success, with a unique combination of support, capital, and talent. The ecosystem’s challenge however is evident in the lack of diversity among the founders of successful companies like PayPal, with other Unicorns emerging from this ecosystem such as Uber, LinkedIn and AirBnB.
For the UK however, an expert panel felt a big challenge was accessing finance in a region with a lot of talent.
Mr Ladd Media
CEO of Founders Forum Group Carolyn Dawson OBE was in conversation with Melissa Snover, founder and CEO of Nourished and Nick Holzherr, founder of Whisk, which was acquired by Samsung.
Snover said that “the talent pool in this region made it possible for us to get the right people.
“The cost of things here allows you to spend more money on growth instead of rent and there’s great access to people, but fundraising in particular as a sole female founder of a manufacturing tech business was very challenging for me.
“That step from seed to series A is really challenging and businesses need more support to gain access to the kind of funders and capital allocators that give out that kind of money.
“Also to prepare for what it’s like to go through a fundraising round because it is more difficult to do than I think anybody is prepared for”.
Holzherr echoed thoughts: “To get great talent you need funding. I think funding has always been a bit of a challenge in this area in this region.
“We needed to go from 10 people to 120 in about a year and that’s because we saw the demand and we saw we needed to grow.
“When you grow that fast you want to hire people who have done it before and at the scale where you want to get to”.
Also part of the panel was former Silicon Valley Bank UK CEO Erin Platts, who since the takeover has become CEO of HSBC’s Innovation Banking arm.
Platts believed the last seven years has seen an “unbelievable breadth and diversification of innovation in the UK”.
She said: “We are in a really unique position where there’s a lot of ambition, but we’re also going through one of the most acute technological changes that we’ve seen in decades”.
