Editing Silicon Fen (section)

==Business growth==
More than 1,000 high-technology companies established offices in the area during the five years preceding 1998.<ref name="nytimes Ibrahim 1998">{{cite news | url=http://partners.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/010498cambridge.html | title=In Old England a Silicon Fen: Cambridge as a High-Tech Outpost | work=[[The New York Times]] | date=4 January 1998 | access-date=13 June 2012 | author=Ibrahim, Youseff M.}}</ref> Some early successful businesses were [[Advanced RISC Machines]] and [[Cambridge Display Technology]].<ref name="zdnet cambridge" /> In 2004, 24% of all UK [[venture capital]], representing 8% of all venture capital in the [[European Union]], was received by Silicon Fen companies, according to the Cambridge Cluster Report 2004 produced by Library House and [[Grant Thornton]].

The so-called Cambridge phenomenon, which gave rise to start-up companies in a town that previously had only light industry in the [[electrical engineering|electrical sector]], is usually dated to the founding of the [[Cambridge Science Park]] in 1970 as an initiative of [[Trinity College, Cambridge|Trinity College]] at the [[University of Cambridge]].

The characteristic of Cambridge is small companies in sectors such as [[computer-aided design]].{{Citation needed|date=July 2021}} They are spread over an area defined by the CB [[postcode]] or 01223 [[telephone]] [[area code]], or more generously in an area bounded by [[Ely, Cambridgeshire|Ely]], [[Newmarket, Suffolk|Newmarket]], [[Saffron Walden]], [[Royston, Hertfordshire|Royston]], and [[Huntingdon]].

In 2000, then [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]] [[Gordon Brown]] set up a research partnership between [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] and Cambridge University, the [[Cambridge–MIT Institute]], in order to increase international collaboration between the two universities and strengthen the economic success of Silicon Fen.

In February 2006, [[Cambridge Judge Business School]] reported estimates that there were approximately 250 active start-ups directly linked to the university, valued at roughly US$6 billion.{{citation needed|date=April 2023}} Several of these companies have grown into [[multinational corporation|multinationals]], including [[Arm (company)|Arm]], [[Autonomy Corporation]], [[AVEVA]], and [[Cambridge Silicon Radio]].

In 2012, it was reported that strong employment growth in the Silicon Fen hub was hampered due to its significant concentration on [[research and development]], which was limiting competition in manufacturing and costs.<ref name="hbs andersen 2012">{{cite web|last=Andersen|first=Christian|author2=Bailey, Jonathan|author3=Heal, Adam|author4=Munn, Oliver|author5=O'Connell, Bryan|title=IT Hardware cluster: Cambridge, United Kingdom|url=http://www.isc.hbs.edu/pdf/Student_Projects/2012%20MOC%20Papers/20120504%20MOC%20UK%20Cambridge%20IT%20hardware%20cluster%20-%20Final%20project%20paper.pdf|work=Final Paper; Microeconomics of Competitiveness, Harvard Business School|publisher=[[Harvard Business School]]|access-date=18 June 2012|date=4 May 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120619111115/http://www.isc.hbs.edu/pdf/Student_Projects/2012%20MOC%20Papers/20120504%20MOC%20UK%20Cambridge%20IT%20hardware%20cluster%20-%20Final%20project%20paper.pdf|archive-date=19 June 2012}}</ref>

Cambridge Ahead, the business and academic membership organisation dedicated to the long-term growth of the city and its region, reported in 2015–16, that growth of Cambridge companies was approximately 7% over one, three, and five-year durations. Global turnover of Cambridge companies increased by 7.6% to £35.7bn, up from £33bn the previous year, and global employment grew by 7.6% to 210,292. The number of companies headquartered within 20 miles of Cambridge grew from 22,017 to 24,580.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.cambridgeahead.co.uk/2017/01/latest-data-cambridge-ahead-reveals-unabated-growth-cambridge-companies/|title=Latest data from Cambridge Ahead reveals unabated growth of Cambridge companies|date=2017-01-24|website=cambridgeahead.co.uk|publisher=Cambridge Ahead|access-date=2017-05-14}}{{Dead link|date=January 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>