Technology businesses in the West Midlands are bridging the gap to London.

It is great to see the regions beginning to close this gap on the capital's technology hub.

Firms outside of London often don't receive the same kind of limelight as some of the bigger players.

Yet, there has never been a better time to start up a technology business.

Thanks to new technology, you can literally set up a business from your smart phone on your kitchen table so getting started has never been cheaper or easier.

There are also so many ways to use other people's technology to scale up your business - such as through the cloud - so opportunity and potential are unlimited.

The West Midlands has a diverse range of tech businesses from start-ups to larger corporates that all bring something unique to the table.

This allows for the tech sector to lead the country in terms of innovation and development.

Birmingham is home to Silicon Canal, which aims to develop a unique tech ecosystem in the city which connects start up and tech talents with larger businesses.

The city and wider region has long been a manufacturing hub and it's similar in tech where it has brilliant talent in an area of the UK significantly more affordable than others.

Two of those local companies which are making waves in the tech sector are Swoopos and Wavenet.

Birmingham-based Swoopos is a mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) system which offers several payment solutions aimed at helping merchants accept mobile payments, enable cashless transactions, adopt mPOS, create loyalty rewards and provide analytics software among other products.

Its founder and chief executive Lee Nazari said the reason Birmingham and the West Midlands had become a success for tech and digital was because of the diversity of businesses and the opportunities available.

"Regardless of the sector, you can find it here, and the support it receives means it is flourishing at an impressive rate," Lee said.

Richard Parks, relationship director and West Midlands lead for technology, media and telecoms with NatWest
Richard Parks, relationship director and West Midlands lead for technology, media and telecoms with NatWest

"We might be the UK's second biggest city but we still have affordability and lower cost of living on our side which is bringing tech talent, businesses and investors to the West Midlands.

"The big tech companies might still favour London first but this creates an exciting opportunity for Birmingham to be the home of niche technology businesses."

Also making great strides is Wavenet, a Solihull-based communications firm which provides telephony, cloud, internet and security services to range of clients across the country.

Finance director Andrew Ashton thinks the reason the West Midlands is flourishing is because it has been able to retain talented graduates leaving universities here every summer.

"It's in a good location but the fact there is a strong talent pool locally has positively impacted the sector," he added.

"The main challenge for the sector is aggregating some of the smaller businesses with the larger ones.

"It's taking what we already have and making the most of it."

Neil Bellamy is national head of technology, media and telecoms and Richard Parks is relationship director and West Midlands lead for technology, media and telecoms with NatWest