Government offers £1m boost to Silicon Roundabout tech companies

Technology Strategy Board will select 10 East London tech companies to share the windfall

The government's Technology Strategy Board has launched a competition to find the 10 most promising technology companies based at the 'Silicon Roundabout' in East London.

Each company will be given £100,000 from the total pot of £1m.

The competition, called 'Tech City Launchpad', was launched by David Bott, the Technology Strategy Board's director of Innovation Programmes, at the inaugural Digital Shoreditch Festival.

According to a report in the Telegraph, Bott said: "This unique competition is designed to promote the community dynamic within the Tech City area, encourage co-operation and grow business in the area. We want to support this hotspot of digital and creative industries by enabling companies to go further and faster towards commercial success. We are looking for projects that may be too risky for companies to go it alone, or that may take them into new areas."

The competition is designed to partly fund technology companies, and the Technology Strategy Board will help them find any additional funding they need.

"Projects will be up to 50 per cent funded by this competition. We will then help approved projects gain the remaining 50 per cent in funding through a funding workshop involving key investors such as business angels, venture capitalists and other larger companies in these industries, who will then invest in the [smaller] companies.

"By showing our financial support, we hope to make it easier for businesses to secure co-funding," said Bott.