A new tech founder-focused event at this year’s North East Technology Festival, TechNExt, will bring together entrepreneurs from across the North East to explore the realities of building technology companies.
Taking place at Durham Business School on Wednesday June 17, the Startup Hub has been curated by Jamie Hardesty, Director of Ecosystem Development at Sunderland Software City, which focuses on the genuine challenges, decisions and pressures involved in growing a start-up.
Wrapping up a full-day programme for start-ups, Dr Arnabu Basu, CEO of County Durham success story Kromek, will join Jamie Hardesty to share his firm’s global scaling journey after reporting record revenues of £26.5m for the year ended April 30, 2025.
READ MORE: £3m funding boost for Newcastle AI agent enabler
The event comes at a time when questions are increasingly being asked about the strength of the North East’s start-up pipeline and ability to create more scalable technology businesses.
Despite growing momentum around innovation, AI and digital investment nationally, North East start-up investment activity remains comparatively small.
In 2024, the region accounted for just 81 venture deals out of an estimated 4,250 completed across the UK, less than 2% of total activity. At seed stage, widely viewed as a key indicator of new company formation and start-up pipeline health, the region accounted for approximately 33 deals from 1,901 UK-wide.
Hardesty says the Startup Hub is designed to address part of that challenge directly by helping demystify entrepreneurship, making the start-up journey more visible and accessible, and to create stronger founder-to-founder connections within the region.
He said: “One of the challenges we have in the North East is that start-up success can often feel distant or abstract. People see headlines about funding rounds or fast-growth companies but not necessarily the reality underneath it all.
“This event is about showing what building a company actually takes. The uncertainty at the beginning. The pressure of finding customers. The messy middle where growth gets hard. The lessons people carry into second and third ventures. And ultimately what scaling from this region can genuinely look like.
“If we want more scalable tech companies in the North East, we need more people who can realistically see themselves in that journey. That means being honest about the challenges, not just celebrating the highlights.
“There’s huge talent in this region. But ecosystems strengthen when knowledge, experience and ambition become visible and shared.”
Sessions throughout the day will feature founders and operators at different stages of the company-building journey, including first-time entrepreneurs, scaling businesses and experienced serial founders, culminating in a closing conversation with Dr Arnab Basu exploring how globally significant technology businesses can emerge from the North East.
The Startup Hub forms part of the wider TechNExt festival programme, which celebrates the North East’s growing technology ecosystem through events, discussions and showcases across the region.
