So yesterday Croydon Tech City held their autumn launch event as they look to pull in more startup firms into south London.
The initiative, which began as an unconscious grassroots movement and has gained a couple of determined champions in the forms of Jonny Rose and Nigel Dias, is really taking off, judging by attendance last night.
Matthews Yard, a café which by day is an entrepreneurial hub and by night acts as a venue for such events, was packed full – and not just because Russell Buckley, government guru on VC funding and ex-AdMob head, was the keynote speaker.
He had some wonderful and interesting things to say on the state of technology and where it’s headed, but also worth mentioning were the startups Makerble and Feast Express, whose founders were excited to share their own experiences with the audience.
I talked to quite a few people from a variety of backgrounds (from coders to the local council) while there, and all of them are keen for the endeavour to succeed.
With Croydon’s cheap rents and enthusiastic attitude to new companies who want to set up shop in the borough, there’s no reason it can’t one day be as big as Tech City.
It doesn’t get as much press coverage as its big brother in Shoreditch but I predict we’ll all be wondering why that was in a couple of years time. As more companies are ready to go to market and hopefully start getting some funding, maybe it’s a matter of time for its first big success – that’s when we’ll begin hearing things about south London a lot more often.
