Google Rocking the London Startup Scene

While I was in London last week, Telerik’s UK Country Manager and I took some time to visit the Google Campus, a massive co-working and startup incubation space. There are six floors of co-working space where you can apply to be a resident if you are a startup based in London and an awesome cafeteria/coffee shop where anyone can come in for the day. On the top floor is Google’s offices. Even though Telerik has a London office, we registered online and spent a day working at the co-work space, mostly to get a feel for the co-work space and check out the scene. (Also, Telerik’s KendoUI was featured at Google I/O 12, so we figured we should give Google some love.)

The co-work space was very cool. From the moment we walked in there was a buzz of energy. Lots of meetings going on, people nose down doing work, and of course playing fuzz-ball.

Besides the co-working space, Google is also deeply engaged and helping build a startup community in London by providing mentoring programs, speaker series, networking events, and all other types of startup support, open to the public. It is great seeing a large tech company helping build a startup community, I hope to see more companies do the same. (Hint Hint Google, Microsoft, Apple in Hong Kong. )

If you a startup person and are passing through London, make sure you drop by. My favorite thing: the Android “Player.”