Here’s your weekly round up of news about startup competitions, awards, co-working spaces, accelerators and any other exciting things happening in the UK tech sector.
We’ll also bring you the latest hires in the space.
Enjoy!
Startupbootcamp and Cisco
Startupbootcamp has announced a global partnership with Cisco, which will see the multinational tech corporation expand its work across all of the accelerators’ 14 locations and more than 300 portfolio companies.
The announcement follows on from Cisco’s partnership with Startupbootcamp in Amsterdam and Berlin over the past three years.
As part of the deal, early stage startups joining the accelerator programme will have access to Cisco Investments – the company’s venture capital arm.
Commenting on the announcement, Andy Shannon, head of Startupbootcamp Global, said: “Adding Cisco as one of our core Global Partners is a huge win for Startupbootcamp’s community of startup founders, mentors, investors, and partners, all of whom will be able to form even closer relationships with the tech leader.”
Maciej Kranz, vice president of the Corporate Strategic Innovation Group at Cisco, added: “We’re incredibly excited to be intensifying our work with Startupbootcamp. This partnership expands our co-innovation efforts with the thriving startup ecosystem. Together we’re more equipped to bring digital solutions that transform the businesses of customers and partners.”
New partners at Eight Road Ventures
Former Accel investor Michael Treskow is now a partner at Eight Road Ventures.
Having previously been involved with investments in ClusterHQ, Funding Circle, GoCardless, Packlink, and WorldRemit, Treskow will continue to focus on FinTech, enterprise software and mobile businesses.
Davor Hebel, partner and head of Europe at Eight Roads Ventures, commented: “We are delighted to welcome Michael and Rohit as we expand our European footprint.
“Over the last decade, European technology companies have firmly established their place in the global market and the next decade will see the pace of innovation accelerate further. We will continue to back ambitious entrepreneurs from across Europe as they build global success stories,” he added.
The search for UK voice recognition tech
A Japanese firm is looking for UK-based firms using voice-related technology such as voice logger, speech recognition, biometrics and interactive voice response (IVR).
Interested companies should apply here and should await a response from the UKTI Japan team who will contact successful applicants.
Startupbootcamp’s 2016 FinTech cohort
Startupbootcamp has announced the nine startups who have made it into this year’s FinTech cohort.
The selected startups were whittled down from approximately 1,000 candidates and shortlisted following a demo day in London last month.
The FinTech startups joining the accelerator are:
- Enterprise Bot: which seeks to provide banks with a powerful AI-powered customer relationship tool to enhance customer experience.
- EuropeOne: a Pan-European mobile bank offering easy bank account opening.
- Kyolab: which seeks to solve the complex problem of mobile compliance for regulated institutions.
- moBILLity: lets users switch service providers in one click and save money.
- Monuva: allows SME’s to manage multiple accounts in one single place.
- Penta: is a bank for small businesses.
- Trakti: is a peer to peer (P2P) platform facilitating procurement, sourcing and sales with dynamic, personalised negotiations and contracts registered on the blockchain.
- Zenith One: gives financial advisors the technology they need to acquire, onboard and advise clients.
- Zeroflows: enables asset managers to access firsthand information and hard to find liquidity in emerging and frontier stock markets.
The startups will receive mentoring from MasterCard, Lloyds Banking Group, PwC, Rabobank, Intesa Sanpaolo, arvato Bertelsmann, Route66, MJ Hudson and Cognito PR.
Application deadline extension
The Central Research Laboratory – a UK accelerator focused on supporting high growth companies that design and make physical products – has extended the deadline for its next cohort of hardware startups until 15th August.
Beginning in September 2016, the cohort will see up to 12 startups enter the nine-month programme.
Each team will receive fully funded access to high-end prototyping labs, 24/7 workspace, a £5,000 living costs grant and deep commercial and product development expertise. In return, the CRL asks for a 6% stake in each company.
Pi Labs and Bosa Ventures
This week also saw Pi Labs announce its partnership with Bosa Ventures, giving Property tech startups in the UK access to £100,000 in funding from the VC arm of the Canadian real estate company.
Colin Bosa, chairman of Bosa Properties, said: “Our alignment with Pi Labs will allow us both to be on the forefront of new frontiers of PropTech, while leveraging the multiple streams of innovation we already have underway in the field of property development and construction.”
… That’s all for today! See you next week!
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