Basho Comes to Shoreditch, A Tech City RedMonk story

If you have been following me for a while you know I am obsessive about Shoreditch. I love working here. So much in fact that I have invested in Shoreditch Works, the coworking space, and its Foundation, which is dedicated to creating opportunities for Hackney people in the local digital economy.  The area increasingly feels like a village where you know everyone, which is great news from a clustering and network theory perspective.

I was riding back from a meeting with Serena Software at Bar Music Hall this morning, and took a detour on my bike down Rivington Street. I looked up as I cycled along and the Basho logo jumped out at me. Wait – Basho is a RedMonk client, and sponsors this blog. What is that doing there, I wondered? At first I kind of assumed one of the local media agencies has appropriated the logo or something weird (it must be the Olympics. Oy, I am thinking like LOCOG now) so I just kind of stood in the doorway and stared.

But then Matt came down and asked if he could help. FYI – the photo above is Madj, not Matt.

“Are you Basho?”

The answer was yes. So I told him who I was. As someone that tells pretty much everyone I meet they should have a development and support office in Shoreditch my immediate thought was

“Why didn’t Justin tell me?”

It turns out that Basho had engaged with the Tech City and Mayor’s office, people tasked with encouraging inward investment, and so Basho ended up in Rivington Street with some help. They now have local staff dedicated to supporting customers. The office is in one of the coolest parts of town, but is just a couple of blocks from the financial district (the kind of people looking for rock solid distributes data stores), as well as being in the heart of startup land (folks like Foursquare use Basho’s Riak database).

Say what you like about Tech City Investment Corp, but if means more good people like Basho locating to Shoreditch, I am all for it.