According to data published by London & Partners, the Mayor of London’s inward investment agency, London is a leading global hub for technology and innovation, attracting more foreign direct investment (FDI) projects from overseas tech companies than any other city in the last 12 months.
Over the past 10 years, London has received 916 tech FDI projects worth over £9.5bn to the city’s economy, creating over 27,600 jobs.
Some of the largest investment deals in the first half of 2019 were:
The £441m Series G funding round for London-based ecommerce food delivery giant, Deliveroo,
the £176m investment into online payments firm, Checkout.com, making it the largest European Series A funding round ever.
investments into fintechs like GoCardless (£57.91m), Starling Bank (£75m) and Onfido (50m) and a £223m investment into Transferwise.
A number of the world’s largest technology companies have made long term expansion announcements and investments into London during in recent years including:
Apple is set to open a new London campus in 2021 at Battersea Power Station for 1,400 staff
Google will open a new HQ in Kings Cross to house up to 4500 staff
LinkedIn moved into its new UK HQ in Farringdon in January 2019
In April 2019, Spotify announced a new research and innovation hub in London, creating 300 new jobs.
In 2018, Facebook announced it will be leasing 3 new offices in the London Kings cross area to double it headcount in the UK capital with space for up to 6,000 staff. The company also announced it has chosen London as its base to develop Whatsapp payments, hiring an additional 100 people in the UK capital
In 2018, Microsoft announced a $20m investment to open up its ‘Reactor’ accelerator space in Shoreditch for global start-ups. It will also open its first European flagship retail store in Oxford Circus in July this year
In July 2017, Amazon UK announced they would double the capacity of the London Development Centre from 450 to 900 high tech staff and by the end of the year there would 5,000 corporate roles and R&D roles in London across their London offices including their new UK HQ.
A lot of talk and initiatives and ideas were proposed and announced by us but oh Kuala Lumpur, di mana mu?