UK Technology Startups

I have been making enquiries to explain the odd Government gobbledee-gook that left everyone perplexed as to its meaning.

The stereo and hi-fi world has always seemed to be the home of some special people whose enthusiasm knows no limits.

It has been a busy summer for venture capitalists with a 68 per cent increase in the number of deals done.

Richard Irving, a partner at venture capital firm Pond Venture Partners, says success depends on finding a balance between outsourcing and innovation

Much has already been said about globalisation and in particular outsourcing and the loss of jobs to foreign competition. Yet in Silicon Valley we have the opposite problem: not enough engineers, resulting in business leaders campaigning to lift immigration limits.

With Google alone hiring over 2,000 people last quarter, this is an acute problem. These two contrasting situations sound contradictory, yet the answer is essential for success. If you have a business which requires basic skills, outsourcing can work well. One example is the trend for call centers to locate in India. Further, if your start-up is going after a commoditised market, you need the lowest cost base possible. This is the theme behind several recent chip successes in China.

One of the winners in the East of England Development Agency’s (EEDA) ‘running the gauntlet’ investment and education programme appears to have caught the eye of CSR co-founder Phil O’Donovan. That has to be a good endorsement.

Layered Sound Technologies of Cambridge has a method of using two types of loudspeakers - conventional cone and distributed mode (flat-panel) – to create a resulting sound that the firm says is more spacious.

We’re better at it but we don’t do as much of it as the Americans. This is the conclusion of a report into universities and their ability to produce entrepreneurial-minded graduates.

If you happen to be trying to find out more about the Bristol start-up Atempo that Electronics Weekly wrote about in October, stop looking. The firm is now called Xintronix.

Some more seed funding seems to be headed in the direction of technology start-ups.

There is a whole new set of industries emerging for technology start-ups as the need for renewable energy becomes ever more pressing.

In a story being carried by Business Weekly, Cambridge has been listed fourth amongst European clusters for institutional investment, behind London, Paris and Tel Aviv.

I wrote the other day about some photovoltaic research funding being made available in the US and suggested VCs were not likely to be interested in the technology.

I have finally spoken to Ian Robertson, chief executive of the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE), regarding figures for entrepreneurial graduates around the world, as promised in my previous blog.