Cambridge sets out plan to double number of unicorns by 2035
Cambridge is aiming to double the number of ‘unicorns’ – start-ups worth over $1bn – based in the city by 2035, as the tech hotspot looks to drive growth.
New plans to drive growth in the city have been released by a partnership of local universities, government and industry. Innovate Cambridge, an initiative that includes the city and county council and large companies such as Astrazeneca and Microsoft, today outlined proposals to boost growth and double the number of multinational businesses to 40 in the area.
Cambridge is at the centre of the government’s plans to drive investment and growth into science and technology, which aims to turn it into the “science capital of Europe”, the Financial Times reported.
Lord David Willets, the former education minister and chair of Innovate Cambridge, said the city “needs to provide for its high tech growth”. He also said the savings coming from scrapping the northern leg of the HS2 rail line should be spent on the Oxford-Cambridge Arc railway.
Cambridge has 5,500 businesses that carry out research, development or innovation, generating more than £20bn in revenues per year.
As part of its “levelling up” agenda, the government has also prioritised increasing economic development in more deprived areas outside the south-east.
Diarmuid O’Brien, co-founder of Innovate Cambridge, said the UK is able to invest in the city whilst raising the economic prospects of other parts of the country.
In an effort to boost innovation investment in both cities, Innovate Cambridge has partnered with Manchester, creating new local “hubs” to strengthen the relationship between researchers and entrepreneurs.
The news comes after government plans to transform Cambridge into Europe’s answer to Silicon Valley were leaked by The Times earlier in the summer, with housing secretary Michael Gove looking to build 250,000 more homes in Cambridge by 2040.
However, Andy Neely, pro vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, said “There is no way that Cambridge can grow to be 10 times as big. I don’t think people want it to grow to be 10 times as big”, when comparing it to Silicon Valley.
“The way for the UK to really compete internationally is to think about wider innovation ecosystems, bigger geographic areas,” he said.