One of Manchester鈥檚 biggest tech firms has announced a significant expansion at Manchester Science Park.
Based at Turing House, M247 has enabled some of the region鈥檚 biggest tech successes, providing the lighting fast connectivity to the likes of online retailer ao.com and web travel agent On The Beach.
The internet service provider and network infrastructure company is co-located at the campus, which is part of Bruntwood SciTech and managed by Manchester Science Partnerships, with two of the city鈥檚 other established and high growth tech companies, UKFast and ANS, in a cluster that has played a key role in Manchester鈥檚 emergence as a globally-leading digital city.
鈥淭his is an exciting period of growth for M247 and we are proud that we can continue this journey by further investment in our facilities with MSP,鈥� said M247 CEO Jenny Davies.
鈥淭his expansion not only marks our commitment to the North West, but our drive for customer excellence and the creation of a vibrant and flexible environment for our people.鈥�
Founded in 2003 as Metronet, the firm had just five staff when it launched at Manchester Science Park and has enjoyed rapid growth as part of the MSP community.
Following the acquisitions of hosting company M247 and fibre business Venus 老九品茶 Communications, the business rebranded as M247 in 2018,
It now employs more than 250 people in Manchester, London and Bucharest.
鈥淭he growth of M247 from start-up to industry leader has been a pleasure to watch and we’ve been delighted to support the evolution of a longstanding customer into an important market player,鈥� said Tom Renn, managing director of Manchester Science Partnerships.
鈥淲orking in partnership with M247, we have developed MSP鈥檚 own digital infrastructure to become one of the most resilient and the best connected internet site in the North; our Manchester Science Park campus has a dark fibre ring around it and houses some of the most important datacentres in Manchester, providing super high bandwidth to our customers and between each of our buildings.
鈥淭he company has enabled the success of some of Manchester鈥檚 leading technology firms and the cluster which has formed around Turing House and Manchester Science Park has connectivity and cloud storage credentials to rival anywhere in Europe.
鈥淲e鈥檙e committed to supporting dynamic entrepreneurs at the helm of promising start-ups.The M247 story can be inspiration to them all, and irrefutable evidence of the benefits of the co-innovation opportunities on our campuses.鈥�
The announcement comes after a successful end to 2018 for Bruntwood SciTech and MSP with the recent news that Bruntwood SciTech is to invest more than 拢10 million in speculative laboratory development at its Mereside life science campus at Alderley Park.
A raft of new customers have also joined and expanded in the MSP community, including several exciting tech start-ups at the Tech Incubator at Circle Square. The Incubator is now home to more than 20 businesses employing almost 100 people, with the new arrivals including two blockchain start-ups, an AI-based digital health company and cyber security specialists.