Aldgate East: The new tech hub of London

Whitechapel and Aldgate East are turning into the most exciting tech hub we’ve seen since Twitter dubbed Old Street ‘Silicon roundabout’ over a decade ago.

We’re not ashamed to admit we’re a young provider of flexible workspaces, so opening a new location is a huge decision (and investment) for us. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to see that we handpick our sites very carefully.

With the opening of the Elizabeth line, the area is now directly connected to Canary Wharf and Heathrow alike. Leasing Director at GPE, Marc Wilder, describes Whitechapel as the “‘15-minute neighbourhood’ on the edge of the city”.

We’ve wholeheartedly put our faith in Aldgate East because we genuinely believe it’s one of the top new hubs to grow a company in London.

Plus we’ve chosen to call a high-tech, hugely stylish building our home. The Hickman literally couldn’t be better connected (no, seriously — it’s got the highest public transport rating in London).

There’s already a whole host of cool tech businesses making it rain in E1, and we’re sure we’ll bring even more chairs to the table.

At the start of the business journey you’ve got the likes of Queen Mary Innovation and Barclays Accelerator powered by Techstars to get ideas off the ground.

Doing their thing in the middle are interesting startups you won’t want to miss like Onfido, Hopin and Dot Residential.

And at the other end, you’ve got beasts like BT’s global headquarters, Uber and Monzo in the mix.

Plus there’s an Amazon Fresh a few minutes from the station, so you can’t get more high-tech than smugly walking out of a shop with a loaf of bread you haven’t physically paid for.

The government also hasn’t been oblivious to the enormous potential of the area. Back in 2013, it launched a whopping £300 million ‘Whitechapel Vision’ regeneration plan to establish another world-class life sciences hub in the UK which is due to be finished soon.

On top of all this swanky tech excitement, you’ve got the cultural buzz of Spitalfields Market, Brick Lane and Whitechapel Gallery just around the corner.

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