By Kitty Martin

“We hear plenty about the huge valuations being placed on phenomenal US companies like Linked-In, Facebook and Twitter, but there is just as much happening here in the UK, although we don’t shout as loudly,” said Mr Rushton.

“It’s a re-enactment of the blossoming of the manufacturing industry in days of yore, but this time its internet engineering instead of mechanical engineering that is leading the charge,” said Mr Rushton.

He said anyone who doubted the BritCom movement should visit the flourishing Tech City in East London, where fast-growing digital technology companies were “springing up between the paving stones”. They were hopefully set to follow in the footsteps of London companies like Last.fm, which was sold to CBS in 2007 for $140-million, or the mega-successful Songkick, largest global concert database.

“The future looks even brighter with bigger and better facilities being opened up for IT entrepreneurs in the Olympic Park after 2012,” said Mr Rushton.

“The advent of the Internet brought an explosion of information – back in the first dotcom boom it was all about content. That bubble burst, but now we are in a new era of social networking and e-commerce. Internet engineering is a completely different way of monetising the world wide web, and Britain is at the forefront creatively and technologically.”

“There’s plenty British expertise working away in back rooms, yet to emerge, but emerge it will – the investors are already fishing the rich waters and many are making excellent catches,” Mr Rushton said.

“It’s the second generation dotcom boom, and this time Britain will lead rather than follow – we’ll make sure that the bubble doesn’t burst,” said Mr Rushton.

Kitty Martin is PR for Telemetry.

http://www.telemetry.com/