Empowering Innovation: Mark John and the Vision Behind Tramshed Tech

As we gear up for the Interceltic Business Forum, we’re thrilled to introduce some of the key speakers who will be sharing their insights and expertise. Among them is Mark John, a pioneering force in the Welsh tech scene and a driving force behind Tramshed Tech.

Since its establishment in 2016, Tramshed Tech has grown from a single co-working space in Cardiff to an influential tech hub with multiple locations across South Wales. Mark's vision has been instrumental in creating a dynamic environment that supports tech startups and scaleups through flexible workspaces, comprehensive growth programs, and high-level digital skills training.

Join us as we delve into Mark's journey in transforming the Welsh tech ecosystem and the pivotal role Tramshed Tech plays in fostering innovation and economic growth.

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What is the Tramshed Tech?

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The original Tramshed #1 was established in 2016, with its first co-working innovation hub in central Cardiff located in the working-class Grangetown district of the city, to meet a need for an innovative collision space to house the local tech and digital sectors and build economic growth in the sector. There were no other real options for co-working or tech sector co-location at this point, Tramshed Tech were early-adopters and market leaders (a position wehave managed to maintain ever since)

This need for a dedicated location for innovation growth was identified afterextensive research in Wales & the UK and across Europe, specifically after I’d worked with local Welsh partners in Cardiff (University and LocalAuthority) as a Creative, Digital and Tech Sector Advisor organising creative cluster programmes and supervising location filming in the city for Cardiff Council.

I was instrumental in then expanding that local cluster into a pan-national and regional European cluster, when I was employed as the European Transfer Agent (Cardiff) for the ECCE Innovation Cluster for 3 years from 2009- 2012 (3 years) for the EU Interreg IV-funded project. This entailed Managing an EU Business Innovation Cluster network around the Digital Tech & CI sectors,initially with 7 European city partners (Stuttgart, Nantes, Eindhoven, Aachen, Dublin, Birmingham, CIDA), then subsequently expanding this network to includeSan Sebastian in the Basque Region. Noting that all of these European partners had access to an Innovation Location or Creative Tech Hub of some form, something that was still sadly lacking in Cardiff/Wales at that point (2010), I set outwith my business partner, Louise Harris, to identify a suitable site to house an innovation hub, out of which we could run business growth programs for the digital tech and creative sectors, via our skills and training company, Big Learning Company (BLC Wales Ltd).

With the support of Cardiff Council and Welsh Government,Tramshed Tech was set up in 2014 as a private limited company (for profit, guaranteed by shares) and our first site opened in 2016.

Almost a decade later, Tramshed Tech is now an ultra-connected community of techstartup and scaleup businesses built with flexibility and innovation in mind,focused on three core elements: flexible workspaces that grow with you as yougrow; tech startup and scaleup support programmes; and digital skills andbusiness growth training.

During that period since 2016, despite the threat of business extinction with the intervention of the Covid pandemic, Tramshed Tech has established itself as the go-to default venue for the digital, tech and creative sectors in Cardiff -recognised as an award-winning tech space throughout Wales and the UK - for example, in 2019 Tramshed Tech was named in the Top Ten co-working spaces in the UK by the influential Wired magazine.

Tramshed Tech now operates as a broad-based tech aggregator in Wales, across the UK and Internationally, working with SME's and large organisations/Primes as a horizontal across a range of tech disciplines, providing:

-class-leading workspaces (6 locations across South Wales in March 2024, with a7th location in Swansea’s Palace Theatre opening September 2024 – and further expansion spaces in West Wales and the Northern Welsh Valleys in the pipeline);

-a range of tech, digital and creative sector company growth programs, for funding partners like Welsh Government, various Welsh local authorities, UKGovernment (SPF), British Business Bank, Google for Startups, Barclays EagleLabs, Barclays Digital Growth Grant (Ecosystem Partnership Programs lead in Wales), etc;

- and high-level digital/tech skills andtraining, delivering industry-leading tech and digital training and skills programs, for Swansea CC/Gower College (SPF-funded), Cardiff Capital Region and Cardiff and Vale College.

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Tramshed Tech now has representation on a range of influential Welsh and UK tech and digital industry advisory boards, including:

-Cardiff University Data Science Academy Board;

-Creative Wales Skills Advisory Panel (for the Digital sector);

-Cyber Innovation Hub for Wales (co-founding partner);

-Swansea Regeneration Board;

-UK Tech Cluster Group (founding partner, representing Wales, reporting into UKGov – DCMS, DSIT);

-Global Tech Advocates steering board (as Tech Wales Advocates founder);

-UK Chips Coalition, promoting the growth of the UK SemiConductor industry,alongside high-level tech organisations like TechUK, Tech Advocates, etc,supported by UK Government (DSIT, DCMS);]

- Western Gateway Advisory Steering Board(representing Welsh tech sector for Connecting our Clusters project, launched2024);

-Barclays Eagle Labs Digital Growth Grant UK Independent Advisory Board (Wales Ecosystem Partnership Representative).

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Can you give us some insights on what the Welsh tech ecosystem looks like today?

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For the past ten years, as a Founder / Director of Tramshed Tech and a collaborative co-convenor of the tech ecosystem in Wales, I have worked withthe TT team to grow the Welsh tech and digital economy - via our network ofconnected sites across Wales (Places) and through the extensive range of growth programs (Programs) we now deliver for the Tramshed community and networks(People) - in Wales and beyond.

Having worked previous to that, for over 20 years on Welsh, UK and international growth programs,setting up and managing digital cluster networks for a range of project partners in Wales, the UK and EU, to grow the digital economy, we have helped to build a vibrant and dynamic fast-growing tech ecosystem in Wales.

Working collaboratively for the past ten years across the private and public sectors in Wales, with tech industry SME’s and Primes – alongside Academia, Finance and Investment partners, like Cardiff Council, the Cardiff Capital Region, BarclaysEagle Labs and the British Business Bank – we have been developing a range of business growth programs to help build the Welsh tech ecosystem and make industry and investment links across the Celtic and Devolved Nations.

TramshedTech now operates as a broad-based tech aggregator in Wales, across the UK andInternationally, working with SME's and large organisations/Primes as a horizontal across a range of tech disciplines, providing a range of tech, digital and creative sector company growth programs, for funding partners like Welsh Government, Welsh City Growth Deals (Cardiff Capital Region and Swansea Bay City Deal), Local Authorities (Cardiff, Newport, Vale of Glamorgan and Swansea), UK Government (SPF), British Business Bank, Microsoft and BarclaysEagles Labs/Digital Growth Grant.

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If someone is looking to expand into the UK, why should they pick Wales?

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Working closely with our colleagues in Welsh Government’s International and Inward Investment team, we can also now offer international companies from across ourCeltic nations (and beyond) a range of growth and investment opportunities to access the UK market, by “Soft Landing” in Wales.

Our inward investment “Soft Landing” program offers six months’ free officeaccommodation in Tramshed in Wales and a fully-funded business growth and investment program, with introductions to finance options and access to industry-leading tech talent pipelines, to make UK market entry as smooth and easy as possible.

Being based in Wales still offers full access to the UK marketplace – but with a range of advantages over other UK growth areas, like London, Bristol or Manchester, for example:

-The Welsh capital city of Cardiff & the city of Newport in South-East Wales are less than two hours from London by train (eg Manchester is almost 4 hours from London);

-The costs base in these Welsh cities is approx. 50% of London prices and 75% of Bristol, including house prices and cost of living;

-Talent pipelines are in place with local Universities (4 universities in10-mile radius of Cardiff/Newport)

-Lifestyle and standard of living is class-leading eg Cardiff often named in Top3 destinations for social entertainment in UK;

-Access to public sector is more direct and closer – with Local Authorities,City Regions & Welsh Government;

-access to finance for Welsh-based organisations through Wales-specific investment funds, (loans, debt and equity available – EG Development Bank of Wales, Angels Invest Wales, new £130M Investment Fund for Wales, funded by the British Business Bank, with £50M Equity fund for Startups; Cardiff Capital Region Scaling Fund (which covers Cardiff and Newport), managed by PwC, with£50M fund for Scaleups;

- Access also to non-Wales-specific UK-wide funding initiatives, like Shared Prosperity Funds and UKRI funds (eg Innovate UK), British Business Bank, etc;

-Wales can still be used as a platform/base from which to Export with Welsh Government support – eg through the Wales Tech Export Cluster program, which Tramshed Tech helps to deliver, as below:

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Why is it important for you to be speaking at the Interceltic Business Forum?

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Apart from working in Wales and across the UK as a formal board or steering group sector representative positions, to build partnership growth opportunities, I have also worked with Welsh government’s international team and officers, who have helped to put in place a series of International protocol agreements and MoU’s with a range of international tech and digital sector partners around theworld, including in:

-IRELAND – MOU with Guinness Enterprise Centre and DogPatch Labs in Dublin;
- FRANCE – MOU with Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, the largest Innovation campus in France;
- JAPAN – MOU with Japan’s “StartupCity” – Kitakyushu
- INDIA – MOU’S with NASSCOM (India’s largest tech organisation); T-Hub(largest co-working Hub in the world); and WE-Hub (Indian Female Entrepreneurs’network), both based in Hyderabad.

So, as part of our international growth strategy, Tramshed Tech is delighted to be in Lorient this month supporting this latest conference of the Interceltic Business Forum, bringing together the cream of our tech, digital and creativeindustries with innovators, influencers and entrepreneurs from all parts of our Celtic nations’ network – from Scotland to Ireland, Brittany to Galicia, Cornwall to Wales. 

We are already discussing collaborative and partnership working with a range of partners across theCeltic and Devolved Nations – eg in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Southern Ireland – and are very keen to establish a pan-Celtic / Inter-Celtic technetwork, through which we could look to deliver an Inter-Celtic Tech Accelerator program, bringing cross-national and pan-regional investment opportunities forgrowth, including delivering some of our existing Wales-only funded growth programs on an InterCeltic pan-regional/pan-National basis, with partners wecould identify through representation at the IBF conference.

Please be sure to catch up with me in Brittany at the IBF on the 12th of August tohear more about the range of growth opportunities we can offer – and to chat further about how we can build out our tech ecosystems across our Celtic networks.

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As we look forward to the Interceltic Business Forum, the insights and opportunities shared by speakers like Markl are invaluable for driving economic growth and collaboration among the Celtic nations.

Don’t miss out on the chance to be part of this dynamic event. Join us on August 12th in Lorient to network, learn, and help shape the future of our interconnected economies.

‍Sign up now and be a part of this exciting journey!

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