The Big Interview: Here East Innovation Centre

Tonight (Thursday 27th October) the Here East Innovation Centre at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park will host a Live Connected Forum bringing the tech world to the former home of London 2012. Sport Industry Group spoke to Claire Cockerton, CEO of ENTIQ, the company behind the project, to find out more and learn what this means for the sports tech and entrepreneurial communities…

Tell us about ENTIQ, its origin and what the company does?

ENTIQ was founded in 2013 by myself and Eric Van der Kleij; Eric was the former CEO of Tech City and I had studied business incubators as part of my MBA and had set one up for Richard Branson. We were both contracted by Canary Wharf Group to set up Level 39 which was a FinTech focused accelerator based at One Canada Square in Canary Wharf.

We both specialised in creating tech clusters and so we partnered in 2013 and created Level 39 and also we established the sister company ENTIQ which was to provide all the accelerator programmes, events, hackathons – all the content for the space. ENTIQ was designed as an innovations services business which was really the engine that brought Level 39 to life.

We were working with young companies to support the development of their businesses and helping them connect with corporate clients who were interested in accessing their new technologies, finding new investment opportunities and working with young companies in a product development process.

We focussed initially on financial services technology and realised what an opportunity the UK had to lead in this sector. I was then asked by Number 10 to set up a new trade body for FinTech called Innovate Finance, bringing together the community of smaller, disruptive, emerging firms under one voice into policy makers and the regulator. The goal of the project was create a more balanced, resilience and accessible financial services sector in the UK.

Then before we won the bid for Here East we ran a major Smart Cities programme called Cognicity and we attracted technology companies from around the world with innovations in energy efficiency, waste management, resource management, building design and management. We incubated these companies over nine months and then helped them pilot their technology in Canary Wharf.

We were then asked by Delancey, the property developer, to pitch for the establishment of the Innovation Centre at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

How many other companies were involved in the pitch process and why do you think you were successful?

We were one of four companies and our main differentiator is that we are not just a co-working space. We offer a whole range of services to our members that include entrepreneurship education, professional support services, financing opportunities, mentorship and innovation programming. We have a broad range of services which provide the real value to our membership. Plus, we have a strong track record in Internet of things (IoT) and financial services technology, so have a significant network in the UK tech scene.

Who is the Innovation Centre for?

Delancey had a bold vision to deliver a huge campus for technology firms. There are 1.2 million square feet across at Here East and the Innovation Centre initially takes 68,000 square feet and we are providing the office space provisions for 4,000 square feet and under units. We are providing hot desks, fixed desks, drop-ins, smaller offices of four people all the way up to thirty people size offices. Our services are targeted towards tech start-ups, scale-ups and corporate innovation firm looking to revolutionise their fields, with an initial focus on sport, health, fashion and mobility sectors. It’s very much part of the overall Olympic legacy goals to create a thriving tech innovation cluster on the Olympic Park that delivers new job creation, investment into the local area, and the cultivation of new industry segments, just like fintech was.

There is an obvious sport connection to the location, but do you envisage the young business you attract will have a link to sport?

It’s not necessary to have a direct sports link but we imagine we will attract sports tech companies as we are in the process of forging partnerships with the local venues so we can test out and trial the technology with the teams and the buildings and the broadcasters. With the Velodrome, the Aquatic Centre, the Stadium, West Ham, and BT Sport on our doorsteps, we know that sport tech will be a natural strength.  

There are also auxiliary technology industries that will be relevant to sport, even if they are not initially focussed on that sector, when they come to us. They might grow to service the sport industry. There are incredible robotic companies, data analytics, AI, VR companies who have a real USP in their particular specialism but haven’t yet addressed the sport industry. Also, vice versa, a sports tech company might come in and the first application of their product might be for a cycling team but they realise that it provides a general public service as well and they can broaden their marketplace to new consumer groups.

What makes you different from other tech clusters, even those already in London?

We have an amazing location, surrounded by beautiful parkland and amazing sporting venues. We have an unparalleled data centre, Infinity across in the broadcast centre, and we are situated in the most connected building in Europe. We also are surrounded by affordable housing and when the Crossrail comes in Stratford in 2018, we will be one of the most connected transport hubs in the UK.

How does the UK compare to the US and the rest of the world as tech hub?

There are many tech hubs around the world and many of these tech clusters have their own unique specialisms. For example New York is quite strong in FinTech and Edinburgh is quite strong in BioTech and London has got its own unique clusters too. At Here East we feel we can be a specialist tech cluster looking at sport, health, fashion and IoT technologies; we are calling it the new Life Tech. It’s all the technologies that are helping us lead better connected, healthier and active lives.

On a global scale. we have an incredibly favourable business environment here in the UK. It’s very easy to start a business, it’s easy to employ people here, we have a lot of support networks such as London & Partners, Tech London Advocates, Innovate UK and Tech City UK and places like the Innovation Centre that provide a discounted or free services to the entrepreneurial community.

What role does ENTIQ play after you attract companies to Here East?

We will run specialised innovation and accelerator programmes which helps large corporates or investors experiment with new technologies, get to know inventive companies and help develop those companies. In the end, the results are contracts, investment, acquisition, mergers and essentially economic growth for both the big and small firm.

Our business model is routed in Innovation Services. We work with a number of large corporates who are trying to experiment with new technologies, connect to the young start up ecosystem, and work to partner with lots of different companies, in order to gain a competitive edge and marketshare.

Who are the typical leaders in the tech and entrepreneurial space?

There isn’t really a typical leader, the media often portrays the alpha male CEO character, but this is a tremendously limited view. I think we will see a move to CEOs becoming more and more obsessed with data and technology; people have said that the old CEO used to be effectively a Chief Commercial Officer and that the new CEOs really needs to be the Chief Technology Officer and that’s how you are going to be able to compete in today’s digital landscape.

What is the gender balance like amongst these CEOs?

There is a real lack of equality for women in business. You see unconscious bias and prejudice come through for female founders trying to raise finance, as they typically experience harassment, undervaluation and land only 75% of the funding their male counterparts do. There is a lot of research about how to overcome that and in particular getting more female investors on the other side of the table is one way to deal with it. There is also a wonderful new focus on female-only angel, VC, crowdfunding networks which are trying to bridge this gap.

Tonight you are hosting the Live Connected Forum at Here East, what’s the overall aim for the event?

It’s to bring the tech community together and tell everyone about the vision for and services of the Innovation Centre, our plans to open in May 2017 and to show people the completed architectural drawings. We will start the application process for many interested companies as well. Finally and importantly, we will explore some fascinating topics that we are passionate about – all around the concept of living a much more connected existence.