In June 2023 we launched the inaugural Chair’s Report – The State of Tech in Bristol and Bath. This report includes a summary of the history of our regional tech sector mapped year by year but we thought it would be useful to capture the more detailed version here too – an opportunity to celebrate all that has gone before, and how the sector has developed over time.
1811: Sarah Guppy is the first woman to patent a bridge
1830: Brunel develops infrastructure for travel from London to New York
1969: Concorde first flew
1978: INMOS founded and later sold to EMI Thorn for £192m in 1984, who sold it to STMicroelectronics in 1989
1985: HP Labs Bristol launches – European research centre, the first outside the US
1990: IMDb begins (not incorporated until 1996)
1994: INMOS absorbed into STMicroelectronics
1999: Element14 opens in Bristol with engineers from INMOS and assets from Acorn Computers (acquired by Broadcom in 2000 for $600m)
2000: Picochip founded in Bath (acquired by Mindseed in 2012 for £52m)
2001: Bath Innovation Centre opened
2001: University of Bristol New Enterprise Competition launches (goes on to support Peequal, Ultraleap and many more)
2002: SETsquared Bristol and SETsquared Bath open
2005: XMOS (Uni of Bristol spinout and SETsquared member) founded
2006: Bristol Robotics Lab (BRL) opens
2007: Eden Ventures launches (now closed)
2008: Pervasive Media Studio launches
2008: Bristol crowned as Science City
2009: HP Labs closes
2009: OVO Energy incorporates (later becomes unicorn in 2020)
2011: Bristol and Bath Science Park opens
2011: First Bath Digital Festival
2011: Icera sold to Nvidia in 2011 for $367 million (founded in 2002 by Element14 founder)
2011: National Composites Centre opens
2012: First ever SPARKies in Komedia, Bath
2012: The Bristol+Bath brand launches at MIPIM
2013: Bristol is Open
2013: Cray acquires Bristol startup Gnodal and opens European HQ in Bristol
2013: Engine Shed opens
2013: BRL opens Hardware Incubator
2013: Webstart incubator launches (now closed)
2014: Just Eat opens tech hub in Bristol
2014: Secondsync sold to Twitter
2015: First ever Venturefest (Nick says at B/B Sci Park in 2012)
2015: SETsquared announced as UBI Global as best University-backed incubator in the world
2015: PsiQuantum Founded at University of Bristol (since raised $650M, relocating to Silicon Valley)
2016: Oracle Cloud Accelerator launches
2016: Bristol Private Equity Club launches
2016: Graphcore spins out of XMOS (later becomes unicorn in 2020)
2016: Strava Global open European HQ in Bristol
2016: University of Bristol opens Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
2017: UnitDX opens, later rebrands to become Science Creates and multiplies
2017: Future Space opens at UWE
2017: Immersive Labs incorporates
2017: Dyson opens IoT hub in Bristol
2017: VR World Congress drew a global audience to Bristol
2017: QTEC launches (later combines with QTIC)
2018: Runway East opens coworking space (1st London brand in city)
2018: Ziylo (Uni of Bristol spinout) acquired by Novo Nordisk reportedly for $800million
2018: Huboo incorporates
2018: Groupon acquires Vouchercloud
2018: Tech Nation names Bristol the UK’s most productive tech cluster
2019: Launch of 5G Testbed
2019: First Bristol Tech Festival
2020: Digital Engineering Technology & Innovation (DETI)
2020: UltraSoc Technologies acquired by Siemens
2020: Science Creates announce Science Creates Ventures £15m fund
2020: Vertical Aerospace incorporates (undergoes SPAC merger with Broadstone Acquisition Corp in late 2021)
2021: First year that £1bn+ raised in equity investment across South West
2021: Gapsquare acquired by XpertHR
2023: ARM opens office in Bristol
Shona Wright
Shona covers all things editorial at TechSPARK. She publishes news articles, interviews and features about our fantastic tech and digital ecosystem, working with startups and scaleups to spread the word about the cool things they're up to.
She also oversees TechSPARK's social media, sharing the latest updates on everything from investment news to green tech meetups and inspirational stories.
