“Britain’s ocean city” is not just picturesque, it is making waves with an early stage cluster of science and digital tech businesses too.
The Plymouth Science Park is among the largest in the South West, home to more than 120 businesses, including a number of spinouts from Plymouth University. Thrive Hubs operates a space in Plymouth and THINQTANQ offers hot-desking, events and a small prototyping lab in the city centre.
Plymouth University’s Formation Zone incubator and its Futures Entrepreneurship Centre foster innovation. The digital tech community is also supported by initiatives such as MESH, (Make Engineer Socialise Hack), and Global Game Jam. What’s more, many of the new digital tech businesses in the city are formed as CICs, reflecting Plymouth’s history of support for social enterprise.
Founded in 2015 as a quarterly Meetup for the digital tech community, last year Digital Plymouth expanded into a one-day conference.
Plymouth County Council has been holding DataPlay events. One of these, developed in collaboration with the Real Ideas Organisation, was dedicated to young people and resulted in a programme that suggests how safe each neighbourhood is.
This year Plymouth Science Park are opening a new £7 million IT hub, providing flexible office space for up to 200 people.
Plymouth University’s i-DAT, (Institute of Digital Art and Technology), is an open research lab that has recently moved to new premises. The new lab will host the Quorum research initiative. Meanwhile, the STEM Centre at City College Plymouth has received significant investment.
Sponge UK is an award-winning digital learning company based at Plymouth Science Park. We work closely with world-leading organisations to deliver better workplace performance using advanced learning technologies.
With the sea and the moors within easy reach, the quality of life for employees is excellent. We’re seeing more talented graduates looking to stay in the area as the city’s digital tech sector thrives.
iotec are intent marketing specialists, applying machine learning to identify consumer intent without assumptions. We provide transparent media buying, intelligent insights and expertise to enable brands to understand and intelligently act in real context and in real time.
Plymouth has an increasingly forward-looking and supportive approach to startups in the digital tech space. We’ve just moved into the new state-of-the-art building in Plymouth Science Park – One Research Way. We’re in great company, with dozens of innovative startups and plenty of space for us to grow.