RocketSpace powers into London to hunt for next $1 billion tech 'unicorn'

A technology startup factory hoping to churn out billion dollar “unicorn” companies is launching in London in the first of its kind for the capital.

RocketSpace, which has helped to nurture some of the biggest so-called unicorns such as Uber and Spotify at its San Francisco workspace, is opening the doors on Tuesday to its new state-of-the-art facility at Royal Bank of Scotland’s old cash-counting operations in Angel.

It will give tech startups a place to work, and allow them to mix with other companies and tap into RocketSpace’s network of blue-chip companies.

RocketSpace was founded by Scottish entrepreneur Duncan Logan, but the UK business will be run by British diplomat Priya Guha, the former British Consul-General in San Francisco.

“San Francisco is a campus where we’ve had 18 unicorns – Uber, Blippar, Supercell, others coming through the door. While we would never want to take full credit for those companies’ success, it shows the environment we bring to the table works,” Guha said.

The UK has produced a handful of unicorn companies – tech startups with billion dollar valuations, but there have been high-profile casualties recently such as e-commerce firms Powa and Ve Interactive.

In the six years RocketSpace’s San Francisco campus has been running, more than 90% of the companies are still in existence, which Guha calls “an incredible statistic for the world of startups”.