Osborne Opens Google’s Tech City Campus

Chancellor George Osborne opened Google’s seven story Campus centre for start-ups in East London’s Tech City today.

The centre, described by Osborne as “the largest purpose built space for start-ups in the whole of Europe,” will hold office space, provide facilities such as a cafe and bike rack, as well as mentoring and support for start-ups coming under its wing. Located in the London area near Old Street known as Silicon Roundabout. Google’s Campus will also swallow up the existing TechHub startup facility.

Start-ups – the new generation

“If this building is designed to be a hub for entrepreneurs and innovators in Tech City, in turn I want the UK to become the hub for technology in Europe as a whole,” said Osborne, emphasising partnership in his speech.

“This partnership model is absolutely in line with our approach to Tech City as a whole,” said Osborne. “Philosophically, this Government doesn’t believe that you can click your fingers and create a technology cluster in a top down way. Wherever possible, our approach is to go with the grain of what’s already happening, and help good things to expand and grow.”

Campus includes the SeedCamp investment programme which will fund around 20 start-up companies a year. Google’s Eze Vidra said the centre would provide a “transformational moment for the UK start-up community”.

Osborne also used the opportunity to mention other Coalition moves recently, including the move to put ultrafast broadband into ten cities detailed in last week’s Budget, along with other proposals to support entrepreneurs. Despite these moves, and a break for games companies,  the IT industry is lukewarm about specific support for IT.

Got ideas for a start-up? Get onto Campus – but first do our patent quiz.