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Google for Startups UK London Campus [Annual Review 2020]
Infrastructure
Impact for scaleups
52
High-growth potential firms
319
Jobs created in last 18 months (4,189 since 2012)
$41.6m
Funding raised
135
Countries where there are partners
Key sectors
The Campus helps ambitious tech companies in the UK to succeed by opening up access to Google’s products, connections and best practices, including staff recruitment.
The incubator launched in London in 2012 as one of the first open spaces for collaboration. Companies that have found a home in the London campus based in the City have created more than 4,189 jobs and raised more than £194m million in funding.
The campus also offers a tailored 12-week programme that supports businesses with global ambitions through mentorship, workshops and events as well as access to workspace. Each business is assigned a senior Google mentor who works with its founders to solve its unique challenges offering guidance and support. The campus is now focusing on high growth potential businesses led by women and underrepresented founders, as well as founders from developing markets through new versions of its Immersion programme.
Through its range of Immersion programmes, entrepreneurs are helped to overcome challenges such as hiring the right team and managing technical teams as well as dedicated leadership coaching. Those with global ambitions can take advantage of the organisation’s partners in over 135 countries. The 52 firms that the team worked closely with in the last 18 months have created 319 jobs, raised 41.6m USD in additional funding, added 190k USD in monthly recurring revenue and over 2m new users, with about a third of that growth coming from women-led businesses.
With less than 0.5% of venture capital (VC) funding going to Black-led businesses, in September 2020 Google announced its first ever pan-European Black Founders program, with 10 of the 12 companies coming from the UK, and on 1st of October the team announced a $2,000,000 non dilutive fund for Black Founders in Europe paired with $3,000,000 in Google product credits.
Given the Covid-19 pandemic the community is currently operating fully virtual. The first fully remote UK Immersion program was launched for 10 companies from across the UK, bringing the experience and resources of the Campus to startups in places like Wales, East Anglia, Northern Ireland or Scotland. Additional support has been offered to current and alumni companies including peer coaching and a free subscription to mental health service provided by Spill.
Google for Startups UK London Campus [Annual Review 2020] website
