Emerging specializations, competences and firms' proximity in digital industries: The case of London

In order to overcome the limitations of defining industrial specializations in digital industries through SIC codes, this paper suggests measuring the specializations and compe- tences of these industries on the basis of the degree of dig- ital technologies present in the products and services supplied. Metadata from CrunchBase are employed, as proxies of firms' specializations and competences which are defined as the fields of activity in which firms are involved. Applying a network analysis, these specializations and competences are linked to the recognition of emerging digital technologies and the strongest combinations of products and services. We tested the proposed methodol- ogy on London, a leading centre for the digital economy.