By Ismail Ahmed
TechCrunch
London hit an important milestone recently, but you may have missed the news as it emerged with a characteristically British lack of fuss. For the first time, the city’s technology startups attracted in excess of half a billion dollars of VC funding in a single quarter – $646.98 million for the period January to March 2015.
The data, collected by London and Partners (the evangelical wing of the London Mayoralty) puts the city on course for a $2 billion-plus investment year. That feels a lot like progress when you consider that London’s tech firms scraped together a miserly $10 million in Q2 2010. However, on purely numerical terms, our achievements are still modest.
London’s 2014 funding total of $1.35 billion puts it on par with Redwood City, Calif., population 76,000 and home to Evernote, Reputation and Turn. Even more humbling is the fact that San Francisco-based Uber raised $3 billion on its own last year.
But size isn’t everything. London exerted architectural influence long before its sedate skyline was punctured by the monolithic Shard. So it is with our technology companies – modestly proportioned, but globally significant.
Consider fintech and the foundations on which this rapidly growing sector is built; London is the world’s leading foreign exchange hub, handling $2.6 trillion per day, more than double that of New York City. It sits on the prime meridian, literally the centre of the world, at least in terms of time zones.
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