London beckons fast-growing Indian technology companies

Uniphore Software, a speech recognition technology company, and Stelae Technologies, an artificial intelligence company, are among 20 fast growing Indian technology firms identified by a programme set up by London Mayor’s office to encourage international businesses to set up offices in London as part of their expansion strategy. The initiative is one of the programmes that emerged following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the UK last November.

The companies will be provided with opportunities to meet business partners and venture capital investors, and other sources of support, in hopes that it will lead to further investment by India’s tech sector in the London economy. India is already the second largest international investor in London measured by total number of projects after the US, and ahead of China, according to data published by the London Mayor’s investment office London and Partners this week.

About 250 projects were set up by Indian firms in London during 2015, while over the past 10 years Indian companies have created over 4,000 jobs in the Capital. The Indian tech sector is the largest investor accounting for nearly half of the investments, followed by businesses and financial services.

Gordon Innes, CEO of London & Partners, said he hoped the programme would help bolster existing ties with India, particularly given recent efforts at a city and national level to bolster London’s status as a hub for the tech sector globally. “That’s why we developed the India Emerging 20 programme: to support Indian businesses looking to scale up and internationalise. Particularly, technology businesses, because of London’s recent emergence as one of the world’s largest tech cluster,” said Innes.

However, the programme comes amid concern about Britain’s immigration policies and the impact it could have on the development of bilateral relations. Cobra beer founder Lord Karan Bilimoria, who is backing the IE20 initiative, warned that the burgeoning relationship between London (and the UK) and India could be damaged by harmful immigration policies, including recent proposals by Britain’s Migration Advisory Committee to restrict Tier-2 visas, and the intra-company transfer route used by India’s tech sector.

“London is a very welcoming place and has the right policies set up by I’m afraid the home offices has the wrong policies that have been hampering the economy,” he said. “London and Partners are showing what can be achieved in spite of the immigration rules but imagine what could be achieved if we had immigration rules on our side.”

The 20 companies identified by the programme are Adadyn Technologies, Cuadev Pharma, Happiest Minds Technologies, Indix Internet, ITKTS Interactive Technologies (Kyazoonga), Latent View Analytics, MoEngage, Nanobi Data and Analytics, OSSCube Solutions, Perpetuity Technosoft, Pervazive, RateGain Travel Technologies, Seclore, Sivleredge Technologies, Stelae Tech, Teabox, Technology Frontiers, Telerad Tech, Uniken Systems and Uniphore Software.

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