Tech start-ups given free or cheap rent in Manchester city centre

Tech start-ups from across Britain are being encouraged to join a £1.7 billion innovation district in Manchester in what is being billed as the “last major regeneration” initiative in the city centre.
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, opened the first phase of the 22-acre site — the Renold teaching building of the former University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (Umist) — on Thursday.
Bradley Topps, chief commercial officer for Bruntwood SciTech, the property investment firm leading the project, said: “It will act as a catalyst for economic growth across the North.”
Tech firms such as Octopus Energy and Concretene, a joint venture between Nationwide Engineering and Manchester University’s Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre, have already set up nearby.
Start-ups specialising in health innovation, advanced materials and manufacturing, digital and AI, biotechnology, and technology related to climate change are being encouraged to apply for office and lab space in the 110,000 sq ft Renold Building. The rents are either heavily subsidised or free, thanks to grants from the Greater Manchester Investment Zone.
“The idea is to provide a collaborative environment for early-stage businesses, with streamlined access into the university,” Topps said.
The innovation district, which is called Sister, is a joint venture between Manchester University and Bruntwood SciTech, itself a joint venture between the property firm Bruntwood, Legal & General and the Greater Manchester Pension Fund. Students moved out of the site in September 2022 and are now housed in the university’s school of engineering.
“It is an incredible asset. It is the last major regeneration opportunity within the city,” Topps said, a process of regeneration that began under the Central Manchester Development Corporation in 1988. Half the 4 million sq ft site is earmarked for commercial and innovation activity, with the rest space for 1,500 new homes and eight acres of public gardens and open spaces.
Burnham said: “Sister will be a thriving innovation district at the heart of Greater Manchester. With the Renold Building opening and welcoming its first occupier, we’re seeing the first signs of what this area will become — a home for start-ups, innovation-led businesses, universities, researchers and investors, where the clustering effect helps create jobs and opportunities.”
The former university lecture theatres that take up more than a third of the space within the Renold Building are being retained for use by the innovation hub and local community.
It will also house several of the university’s existing initiatives, such as the Turing Innovation Catalyst Manchester, which is helping AI-start-ups; the Christabel Pankhurst Institute for health technology research and innovation, and the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Catalyst, which is supporting biotechnology businesses.
The regeneration scheme was previously called ID Manchester, but Topps said they wanted a name that was more memorable and better reflected the meeting of academia and industry. He said the word Sister came from a government report in the 1960s that called for an overhaul of the higher education system.
The report recommended the creation of three Special Institutions for Scientific and Technological Education and Research — three Sisters — with the first being housed at Umist. The recommendation was not followed up. “It was too radical for 1963 but for what we are building here we think it is perfect,” Topps said.
Sustainable Ventures, a London-based business that provides co-working space for start-ups focused on using technology to tackle climate change, has taken three floors of the seven-floor Renold Building.