A collaboration between two members of the Sheffield Technology Parks community has demonstrated the power of proximity, shared industry expertise and a supportive innovation ecosystem.

When startup Hyperscale Consulting joined the Cooper Project at Sheffield Technology Parks, founders Henry Addico and Andy Caine were looking to grow their consultancy and refine an early idea for a product. Within months, a new connection within the Tech Parks community would help them pivot, creating a clear focus for the business.

They met Craig Blaauw, founder of 4eyez, designer and manufacturer of Taxi CCTV® systems, and long-term resident of Sheffield Technology Parks. Craig had developed a new platform to support his growing customer base, a CRM system designed to allow taxi operators using 4Eyez Taxi CCTV® systems to report faults, submit enquiries and manage support requests and place orders whether a single driver or a firm with multiple vehicles.

Craig built the platform himself using vibe coding and before rolling it out to users, he needed specialist support.

“Craig had built the foundations of the platform but wanted to ensure it was robust, secure and ready to scale,” explained Henry. “He posted a message in the Sheffield Technology Parks community WhatsApp group asking if anyone could help - it was just the type of thing we can do.”

After responding to the message, Henry and Andy soon met Craig in person at one of the regular networking events hosted at Sheffield Technology Parks. The conversation quickly developed into an opportunity to work together.

Over the following weeks, Hyperscale worked closely with Craig to review and rebuild the platform - addressing bugs, strengthening security and ensuring it was scalable enough to support the future growth of the 4eyez business.

Being based in the same building made the collaboration both easier and more effective.

Craig said:
“We’d been working on the platform for a while, but I knew I needed specialists to take a look at the security side of things before it could be launched. One quick message in our community WhatsApp group connected me with Henry and Andy.

“Having them based here made a huge difference. I could meet them regularly, check in on progress and really get to know how they work. That closeness made the whole process much more efficient and built a lot of trust.”

For Hyperscale, the project turned out to be more than just a consultancy engagement. Through working on the platform and supporting Craig’s evolving needs, Henry and Andy saw a wider challenge faced by many startups and growing businesses.

While consultancy support can help fix bugs or improve systems, it often isn’t a sustainable solution for early-stage companies - often with non-technical founders - that need to build, test and adapt secure digital products quickly and iteratively.

The experience prompted Hyperscale to rethink its own focus and begin developing a new product aimed at solving this challenge.

Henry and Andy said:
“Our collaboration with Craig at 4eyez played a key role in seeing us pivot our business. Working on the platform helped us understand the real challenges founders face when trying to build secure and scalable applications quickly.

“It was also great fun working with such a passionate founder with a really exciting product.”

Hyperscale is now developing an AI-powered app-building platform designed to help startups and technical teams rapidly create secure, cloud-native applications. The platform embeds security into the development process from the outset and enables teams to maintain ownership of their environments without needing ongoing specialist consultancy support.

For Sheffield Technology Parks, the collaboration is a strong example of how co-location can accelerate innovation and create new opportunities within a shared ecosystem.

By bringing together founders, startups and scaling tech businesses under one roof - supported by programmes such as the Cooper Project and LOCATE - the Tech Parks community helps foster connections that can lead to valuable partnerships and new ideas.

What began as a simple callout on WhatsApp has become a collaboration that strengthened an ambitious and scalable business, informed the direction and market fit of a new startup, and has accelerated development of a new product with Sheffield roots and national reach.