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Inspired by successful American business accelerators, the last few years have seen a boom of tech support companies in the UK.
That boom means there are now more opportunities than ever before to get support for setting up a new tech start-up in the UK.
Business accelerators provide funding, expert advice and office space for fledgling companies in exchange for a small share of their business.
The most recent addition is Wayra by Telefonica - O2 in the UK. It was originally launched by Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete - former Telefonica Latin America CEO and now CEO of Telefonica Europe in response to the lack of available support for the growing number of innovative start-ups in Latin America.
Wayra provide successful applicants with seed funding - up to £50k - free office space for six months and access to mentors for support.
This summer more than 1,000 companies applied and 20 were selected.
The business rationale for doing this is that the company hopes to develop, work with and buy products from tech companies in territories they operate in as an alternative to buying from traditional markets such as Silicon Valley.
Ashley Stockwell, Academy Director Wayra UK, said: "If you can get a new business idea launched and accelerated in a tough climate, then you will be really well placed to succeed in the future."
Springboard is a mentor-led accelerator program run over 13 weeks. They provide seed capital up to £15,000 to ten companies, office space and access to mentors and other entrepreneurs.
Backed by many of Europe's leading VCs, the largest and longest running accelerator in the UK is Seedcamp.
It receives over 2,000 applicants annually, hosts 200 startups over monthly investment events throughout the year, and invests in roughly 15-20 companies per year.
Seedcamp's standard terms for investment are €50,000 for 8-10% of the company.
Seedcamp's program supports startups throughout their growth and includes space in Seedcamp's offices at Google Campus, monthly learning days, access to Seedcamp's keystone events such as their US trip where companies get to meet key investors, partners, and customers, and Seedcamp week where startups get to meet Seedcamp's 2000+ mentor base and investors here in Europe.
To apply and for more info, visit: http://www.seedcamp.com/
Other trends in the industry is the provision of free or cheap office space for tech start-ups.
Mozilla Spaces offer open working environments where developers can work completely free of charge.
If you need a more permanent and traditional office to work Google Campus, Europe's newest co-working space and entrepreneur community, will rent you desks by the month at heavily subsidised rates.
Even if you don't have an idea for a start up, or want to develop one to perfection, there is help too.
The aim of Launch48 is to bring together participants from different backgrounds and levels of experience in the digital economy to think/plan/develop and launch a company in 48 hours.
I attended a session a few months ago and it's a frantic, energy fuelled, entrepreneurial event designed to engage all participants while offering the opportunity to learn and meet new people.
The boom of accelerators is good news for start-ups. It forces competition between the providers and they all have to raise their game and offer more value to attract the best start-up talent.
What we have seen so far is lots of new accelerators that actually offer on paper similar value making it difficult for start-ups to decide which ones they should apply to.
It's clear that over the next few years the good accelerators that really can add value and secure their participants further investment will rise to the top and the rest will fall away or just attract the mediocre teams.
In effect we will end up with a hierarchy of tier one accelerators of which there will be less than five across Europe and then "the rest".
