London’s tech scene gets a reboot
With TEDx-style talks, speed pitching, an international lineup of musicians, complimentary pizza, drinks and luxurious ice cream bites, this new event has one ambition: the celebration of creativity and its power to bring people together.
“Creativity and inspiration is at the heart of TECH+TUNES, and every month, guests are treated to exhilarating live performances from the world of opera and classical music,” commented Lizzie Holmes, Experiences Manager at SurrealDB; the serverless database startup behind TECH+TUNES.
Dig further into SurrealDB, however, and you soon realise that creativity isn’t just a buzzword for the London-based startup, rather it underpins their entire recruitment philosophy.
“We have a spoken word poet, jazz musician, opera singer, History of Art graduate and even a French horn player in the team,” said Holmes.
“The tech industry is the new frontier of people’s lives, and creativity needs to be at the heart of that. Out-of-the-box thinking is what motivated Tobie and Jaime (SurrealDB’s founding brothers) to solve one of the tech industry’s biggest problems: needing multiple API development and database technologies when building SaaS tools.
“SurrealDB takes away this headache by consolidating the different databases and API code into one easy-to-manage platform.”
This innovative-thinking quickly propelled SurrealDB to becoming one of the fastest-growing open-source databases in history — securing seed funding of $6 million in December last year.
Asked about the distinction between traditional STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, maths) and the arts, Holmes, herself a trained soprano from the Royal College of Music, added: “There should never be a division between arts and tech — they should go hand in hand. Embracing creativity fosters endless ideas and innovation.
On the startup’s refreshing approach to networking, SurrealDB Co-Founder Jaime Morgan Hitchcock said: “TECH+TUNES is our spirit animal — encompassing all of our values. We’ve grown rapidly because we celebrate creative-thinking, and to find creative-thinkers, we open our doors and hearts to them every single month.”
Due to phenomenal demand, TECH+TUNES now requires pre-booking, but remains free to attend. Developers, engineers and friendly people from all corners of London’s business and creative community are welcome.
2023-07-28




