New Leeds Tech Hub drives investment boost for digital sector

Four projects supporting the growth of businesses in the Leeds digital sector have been awarded a cut of nearly £2.7 million of funding.

One of the schemes to be given the green light includes the creation of a new Tech Hub created at Platform, above Leeds railway station. Once open, the new Tech Hub will offer a central resource which digital projects from across the city can utilise and feed into.

This announcement follows the launch of a Leeds Tech Hub Fund last year which was introduced as a catalyst for growth and expansion in the city’s fast-growing digital sector.

After an application process was opened offering businesses the chance to bid for grant support from the fund, projects put forward by four companies, Bruntwood, East Street Arts, Leeds Open Data Institute and GameMakers have been recommended for approval in a first round of announcements.

A further £1 million remains in the fund and will be used to support some of the other bids that were received in this particular application round.

The projects announced in the first round include

• Platform’ by Bruntwood – creation of a new £2m Tech Hub providing new and existing digital businesses with access to 410 desks in both co-working and small office environments, event spaces and meeting areas, all backed up with help to grow and find finance for tech companies
• East Street Arts ‘BEETA’ – £550,000 to promote with partners Invisible Flock, Leeds as a unique global location for creative digital projects and businesses and linking tech to the city’s dynamic international artistic offer. This will support the city’s European Capital of Culture 2023 bid
• An investment of £100,000 in the ‘Leeds Open Data Institute’, linking tech growth with the wider cultural offer in Quarry Hill. This will increase their capacity to support start-ups, events and collaborative projects
• Funding of £36,646.52 to support ‘GameMakers’, which will offer specialist game development hardware in order to assist computer game start-ups accelerate their growth

The development of the Leeds Tech Hub was provided from £3.7 million of funding from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.