It has now been 15 years since the phenomenon of small tech firms clustering around the Old Street Roundabout first began to attract the attention of the real estate industry. In 2010, then-Prime Minister David Cameron announced plans to transform the area between Shoreditch and the Olympic Park into one of the “world’s great technology centres”, which sparked the creation of the Tech City initiative, with estimates suggesting that the number of tech start-ups increased from 85 to 5,000 in just two years. The area around Old Street Underground station acquired the nickname ‘Silicon Roundabout’, reflecting the grand plans for the area, and Google opened an incubator hub to ensure it identified and captured the best talent. However, Google shuttered its Shoreditch campus after Covid-19, which operated at a loss since its inception, suggesting it wanted to focus on start-ups across the UK. Also, TechHub, one of the area’s first dedicated coworking spaces, closed in 2020 citing unmanageable rent increases and falling demand related to the pandemic. Source link