A Government quango is set to hand British entrepreneurs a £42m funding boost in a bid to help them grow their businesses.
The money is part of the Technology Strategy Board’s latest £400m annual budget and it hopes it will lead to more innovation in the areas of data handling and the Internet of Things (IoT).
The cash will be spent in a number of ways, including funding 11 new startup competitions, developing an open-source ‘toolkit’ that would make data handling easier for businesses and to further develop IoT technologies.
The board’s CEO, Iain Gray, said: "The 2014-15 Delivery Plan raises the TSB’s ambitions to a higher level, enhancing support for UK companies through a range of targeted programmes, opening up lucrative pathways into Europe and expanding facilities and opportunities for businesses to collaborate and innovate still further."
The cash will also be used to support Tech City UK, a quango whose remit is to nurture the UK’s various tech startup scenes, and the Open Data Institute, founded in 2012, which works with startups to build products and services using open data.
The funding announcement comes after Prime Minister David Cameron committed £45m in March to funding innovation around the IoT.
He formed the UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) Innovation Gateway with creating 500 tech roles over the next two years, as well as attracting £1bn of international and private sector investment.
