Middlesbrough-born tech startup turned unicorn lands $2.65bn acquisition

Yes, you did read that headline correctly! While it might not have hit our regional news headlines, it’s important that we take a minute to think about the very high-profile acquisition of Postmates this week.

I want to take you back to 2010. A time where words like startup or accelerator or even innovation weren’t anywhere near as common or cross-sector-cutting as they are today. I’m talking tech, baby!

Ten years ago, one of Europe’s first major acceleration bootcamp programmes started right here in Middlesbrough. The Difference Engine incubated nine budding businesses, catapulting the North East onto the global tech scene. One such startup, Curated.by, would move to the U.S. after the programme and would go onto pivot into delivery. Today we know this business as Postmates, which was bought by Uber this week for $2.65bn. How’s that for an ending?

Anyway, back to the present, here’s your headlines from this week.

Folks, if you don’t know about https://www.techdiary.co.uk/ne then you absolutely have to check it out! Here you can submit your design/tech.startup events and meetups in the North East, it’s a fantastic free community resource and I encourage you to support it! Some upcoming corkers are below but go to the website for the full list.

See you next week, Jamie