Today’s guest post is by Simon Walker, Partner, Taylor Wessing LLP, sharing his thoughts on Tech City and its growth potential.

Simon Walker, Partner, Taylor Wessing LLP

 Any area that has grown from 15 to 300 companies within three years must be viewed as a good thing, but can that be true of Tech City? This question arises because little was known about Tech City until the UK Government started to promote the area at the end of 2010. There is always a concern when an area achieves such an apparently rapid prominence, aided latterly through Government support, that it will fade just as quickly. We do not think that will be the case with Tech City.

Yes, the UK Government’s involvement is most welcome; its involvement of various global tech companies and the assistance being provided by the Tech City Investment Organisation will surely help accelerate growth. However, Tech City was always destined to be a success once it achieved critical mass, which it had by the time of the Government’s announcement. This is because Tech City is not just about silicon – despite references to the area as “Silicon Roundabout”. It is about a marriage of technology and the creative arts, and it is London’s pre-eminence in the latter that makes Tech City different from Silicon Valley and Silicon Fen, but there are many similarities with the equally inappropriately named Silicon Alley in New York.

Coupled with the recognition that London is now regarded by many as the global capital and you have an unbeatable combination for those companies who do not regard the need to crack the US market as the holy grail. For these companies, for whom the markets of Europe, Asia and South America are as important as the US, the benefits of working in the world’s global capital outweigh the benefit of being close to the funders in Silicon Valley.

As one of Europe’s leading law firms, advising technology clients ranging from start ups to world beating behemoths, Taylor Wessing has demonstrated a commitment to technology companies. This commitment comes not just through the range of services that we provide, but through our involvement in major tech clusters. In the UK this is shown through the work we have done in Cambridge, while internationally we advise numerous tech companies based in Silicon Valley and other key US clusters, and have worked with companies located in and around the Munich cluster for many years.

It is, therefore, a natural progression for Taylor Wessing, which already advises a number of Tech City based companies, to hold a series of events in Tech City to provide information to companies in that cluster. The first of our events, on 10 October at the newly opened Trampery, will focus on key issues faced when setting up and running early stage companies and obtaining funding. Our speakers include Eric van der Kleij (CEO of TCIO), Anil Hansjee (ex-Head of Corporate Development, EMEA, Google), together with founder CEO’s, Charles Armstrong (Trampoline Systems), Tom Allason (Shutl) and Ab Banergee (ViewsOnYou).