A retrospective from George Mackintosh

In 2008 a cool tech entrepreneur – definitely not me – whipped up the term Silicon Roundabout as he looked over the grey Shoreditch office scape. While along the road in Smithfield, I founded Eggplant [first known as TestPlant] with just me in London and four wonderfully clever geeks in Boulder, Colorado. That venture continues today as a story of start-up to scale-up: from a small to a medium and now very nearly a large enterprise.

In November 2011 Prime Minister David Cameron visited London’s “Tech City” and used the courage, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit on display in technology start-ups as a symbolic tonic to encourage Britain’s economic recovery from the banking crisis of 2008. And the CBI started to focus attention on the significance of medium-sized businesses and the disproportionately positive economic contribution of the growing number of new and fast-growing small businesses. Two years later aboard the Prime Minister’s chartered 747 to S