The UK government has awarded Barclays Eagle Labs a £13 million funding package to boost innovation for small and scaling tech businesses.

Strengthening regional tech industries could grow the UK’s digital sector by more than £41 billion by 2025 and create 678,000 jobs, according to the government.

The funding will enable Eagle Labs to launch new programmes to grow tech businesses as well as increase access to Eagle Labs’ existing services. Barclays said that it will also double the number of mentoring sessions offered to tech firms to 1,500 a year.

Paul Scully, minister for tech and the digital economy, said the funding is aimed at unlocking the potential of the next generation of start-ups and scale-ups in “all corners of the country”.

Scully said: “Barclays Eagle Labs are digital industry experts and will help tens of thousands of tech firms and founders to achieve their dreams and create jobs and economic growth.”

Barclays Eagle Labs beat out competition from other grant applicants including the government’s own body Tech Nation, which it founded almost a decade ago.

An independent panel assessing applications concluded Eagle Labs was uniquely positioned to deliver targeted support across the country, thereby raising doubts about Tech Nation’s future.

Tech Nation’s chief executive Gerard Grech told City A.M. the body is “pursuing various routes and evaluating the options available to us”, while the body said in a separate statement that it has been working “around the clock” to secure its future as it tries to fill the shortfall in its funding.

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