For a few years after 2008, the warren of offices and warehouses around Old Street roundabout became London’s best-known cluster of technology start-ups. The nickname Silicon Roundabout started as a joke. Matt Biddulph, then chief technology officer of the travel start-up Dopplr, used it in a tweet in July 2008. Journalists and politicians picked it up, and by 2010 the government was talking about East London Tech City.
Made in Shoreditch interviewed founders who were building companies in that cluster. This feature returns to three of those conversations: Andrew White of FundApps, Andy Bell of Boomf and Nicholas Katz of Splittable. The quotes are from the original interviews. Company statuses were checked against company websites and Companies House in October 2026.
Andrew White on FundApps and why Shoreditch worked
Andrew White founded FundApps in 2010 to sell cloud compliance software to hedge funds. In September 2011 he told Made in Shoreditch that traditional financial software was “hugely expensive and horrible to use”, and that FundApps was trying to replace it with “intuitive web applications”.
Asked why he launched in Shoreditch, he said: “London is the world’s most international city, and Shoreditch is the perfect microcosm in London. I have all the technical & creative resources I need within easy reach and can still walk to Bank in a couple of minutes. You can feel the creative buzz just walking around Shoreditch, it’s hugely inspiring. Oh, and the great bar scene helps too.”
His advice to other founders was blunt. “DO: Network, network, network. Be persistent. Become a member of TechHub… Check out SiliconDrinkabout, which is every Friday somewhere in Shoreditch. DON’T: Sit in your bedroom coding away and thinking you’ll become a millionaire.”
On competing with Silicon Valley, he rejected the framing. “I don’t think Shoreditch needs to compete with Silicon Valley. The Silicon Roundabout has its own unique flavour, and that’s its strength.” Read the 2011 Andrew White interview.
FundApps later grew into a global RegTech firm. It merged with SteelEye in November 2025. On 31 March 2026 White stepped down as chief executive and became a non-executive director. Frederic Ceyte is now chief executive, according to the company’s own announcements.
Andy Bell on Boomf and shipping marshmallows by post
Boomf printed photographs on marshmallows and posted them as first-class letters. Co-founder Andy Bell told Made in Shoreditch in 2014 that the idea mixed James’s earlier cake-printing business with Bell’s own StickyGram, which made Instagram fridge magnets designed to fit a first-class envelope.
“Initial experiments were all around cup cakes, but they had to be very small and ungenerous to fit in a first class envelope,” he said. “Than James had a brainwave about marshmallows, and suddenly everything clicked.”
The hard part was the printing. “Marshmallows are tricky little customers. They are sticky, hard to cut accurately and unwilling to present a consistent surface. It wasn’t one big thing that allowed us to break down the marshmallow’s resistance. Just lots of little innovations.”
At the time of the interview Boomf had just launched an on-demand service in Selfridges. Bell talked about pushing into America and launching another product. Read the 2014 Andy Bell interview.
The consumer brand still trades online as Boomf, operated by Boomf Gifts Ltd, an active company registered in Reading. An earlier Boomf Ltd entity was dissolved in May 2026 after a creditors’ voluntary liquidation of a related company, according to Companies House.
Nicholas Katz on Splittable and the Shoreditch community
Nicholas Katz co-founded Splittable to help housemates split bills and shared expenses. In December 2014 he told Made in Shoreditch he had shared eight properties in London and lived the problem he was trying to solve.
“I’ve shared homes in London and many more in Washington, D.C. I’m a social animal and love living with others, but know how frustrating it can be and how unfortunately easy it is for household finances to get in the way of a happy living environment.”
On why he chose Shoreditch: “The community. Hands down. The entrepreneurs that have all moved in here create an energy you don’t get elsewhere in London.” Read the 2014 Nicholas Katz interview.
Splittable later became part of Locatable’s home-management stack and was rebranded as acasa. Goodlord acquired acasa in October 2021 and folded the bill-splitting technology into its lettings platform. The independent start-up interviewed in 2014 no longer exists as a standalone company.
What the archive still shows
Taken together, the three interviews capture a short window when Old Street felt like the centre of London tech. The founders talked less about venture capital fashion than about trust, shipping, housemates and Friday drinks. Some of the companies scaled. Some were bought. The buildings around the roundabout have changed, but the archive still records what it felt like to build there.
For more founder interviews from the same years, see Made in Shoreditch’s pieces on Chris Tudor of MASSOLIT, Adil Abrar of The Amazings and fifteen years of Shoreditch creatives. For desks and studios in the area now, see the coworking guide.