London Mayor aims to keep city as startup hub

Bloomberg

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has announced a new programme of investment days for London startups, as he tries to maintain the UK’s position as a European hub for young tech companies.
The UK national trade body for early stage companies will help run 20 investment days in London over the next four years, providing coaching and connections to potential investors. A total of $740,000 in support will be made available—half to underwrite the cost of running the programme, half in the form of consultation services from the UK Business Angels Association.
In the wake of the Brexit vote other cities are making greater plays to attract entrepreneurs. French President Emmanuel Macron has called to make his country “a startup nation,” while local billionaire Xavier Niel has spent $291 million to transform a former Parisian freight station into a 34,000-square-metre startup campus containing 3,000 desks for rent.
The Mayor’s latest announcement comes almost a year after he launched a $9.2 million fund to give the city’s younger population access to jobs in the tech industry. Khan has also recently appointed the city’s first ever chief digital officer, Theo Blackwell.
“Since I became Mayor, the capital has attracted significant investment from the biggest players in this sector—Google, Facebook and Apple, to name just three,” Khan said. “This is a clear sign London is open for business.” In a February survey of 940 startup executives in the UK and other nations, one in 10 said they were considering shifting their headquarters onto the continent, with Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam often talked about as potential homes for future bases.