New investment company announced as Birmingham Tech Week launches

As part of the launch of the inaugural Birmingham Tech Week, the creation of a new investment and advisory company that will act as a transformative catalyst for the growth of the region’s tech sector has been announced.

The Ark will bring a unique platform to the West Midlands that converges the region’s high growth enterprises with angel investors, access to expertise and a wider community of innovative companies looking to grow and scale.

The Ark seeks to address the major constraint to growing tech clusters outside of London and capitalises on Birmingham’s entrepreneurial ecosystem – with the city ranked as the UK’s leading regional location for start-up creation for five consecutive years.

Co-founder of The Ark, Rupert Lyle, said: “No organisation in the Midlands or even the UK has ever truly harnessed the potential economic value-add of a network of individuals in this way.

“The Ark seeks to harness expert advice, access to networks and investment potential, and use it in a way that helps Midlands’ entrepreneurial talent convert drive, vision and energy into successful high growth businesses or even life changing social enterprises. We are looking for both successful business people and owners of high growth businesses to come on the journey with us”.

Hosted by Birmingham Tech Week in partnership with the West Midlands Growth Company – the organisation responsible for attracting businesses and investment into the West Midlands – the launch event for Birmingham Tech Week 2019 featured a range of speakers at the Millennium Point venue.

During the event, Mr Street announced the 10 organisations from across the region that will be offering a combined 2,000 training places as part of the £5million Beat the Bots funding programme. Launched earlier this year, the fund will facilitate digital upskilling, safeguarding thousands of jobs from robots.

Birmingham Tech Week Founder, Yiannis Maos, commented: “Birmingham has the potential to be a world-leading ‘tech city’. Birmingham Tech Week is therefore about showcasing the region’s cutting-edge capabilities, attracting investment and converting our existing talent into the leaders of tomorrow through invaluable networking and collaboration.

“Birmingham Tech Week will be a catalyst for change; reinforcing locally and nationally that this is a passionate region on the rise – this marks only the beginning of a fantastic growth journey for regional tech”.

Mike Jackson, Entrepreneur Success Director at Tech Nation, added: “The Midlands is quickly becoming a region of superb collaboration within the tech sector.

“We can see this with the launch of the inaugural Birmingham Tech Week and other initiatives to help grow the resources available to digital companies with the likes of Leicester Startups, Digital Northampton, My Clever Group in Staffordshire and now The Ark in Birmingham.”