- Date:
- 7th June 2010 - 4pm
- Location:
- Microsoft London, Cardinal Place, 100 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 5JL
- Website:
- www.thedifferenceengi ...
- Funding Sector
- All
- Organiser
- Bridge Club North
See the final episode of the Difference Engine Accelerator programme - culminating in the teams pitching to Angel Investors and VCs at Microsoft London on 7th June to continue the progress they have made over the last 13 weeks.
The Difference Engine certainly makes a difference! That was the overwhelming impression at the programme’s two demo days in Newcastle and London sponsored by North East Access to Finance and Microsoft. The programme mentors who’d had early access to the nine international teams participating on the first Difference Engine programme couldn’t believe the business progress some of them had made in 13 weeks. Colin Willis, managing director of business angel syndicate Hotspur went as far as to say that ‘this is the best thing to have come out of the north east for a very long time!’. Some of these teams weren’t investable when I first met them – they certainly are now’ he continued.
Not only are the teams investable, they’re also beginning to find customers and partners, strengthen their management teams with industry experts and raise investment. In the ten days that divided the two demo days, Screen Reach has received significant interest from a number of parties. With this in it’s pocket (along with its first customer in Leeds Armouries) when co-founder Paul Rawlings presented the company to a packed room of business investors and digital industry leaders at Microsoft’s London HQ. The other teams were also moving quickly towards securing the investment or the partners that they need to grow their business to the next stage. Tim Langley of CANDDI, which helps turn website visitors into customers, left London with a clutch of venture-fund business cards and the promise to keep in touch: ‘we don’t even need investment yet, he said – we want to bootstrap our way to securing some customers first.’
Andrei Korobeinik from Estonian company Cutefund had a slightly different approach. Already a successful entrepreneur, he’s invested €100,000 of his own to become the first customer of Cutefund – a crowd-sourced mutual fund and platform for investors that is currently getting all it’s financial permissions in place. Recite Ltd, led by North-East born Ross Linnett has set itself a different problem to solve. Ross is dyslexic, his software helps people like him make full use of websites and it caught the attention of investors in the North East and London alike. Another North East company is Wishlist – the dynamic duo David Hayward Smith and Oli Wood have designed a facebook application that will call a halt to the £3billion spent annually on unwanted gifts!
Some teams had used the Difference Engine programme to design a new digital product or service, others like Tagorize, GeoGoer and Curated.by put the programme to good use by refining an idea and taking it to a new market. The Tagorize team has had previous success at Seedcamp is now working with blue chip customers in Manchester and nationally. The GeoGoer team from Lithuania was intent on solving complex travel problems – they launched their open-transport system in London on the day that London Transport was making travel data freely available. We welcome the day when we can plot our complicated international journeys using just the one GeoGoer website. The Curated.by team have hard-hitting partners too with their realtime information curation platform. And finally, there’s no business like showbusiness! The London team behind Rock Control is giving any of us wanting to become a rock star the online facility to do so. Formally launched in the ten days between the Newcastle and London demo days, the site is already getting rave reviews from industry leaders and a strong sign-up from aspirant musicians from around the world.
Rock on Jon Bradford! Founder of The Difference Engine and the full time driver of the thirteen week course that starts afresh for another 13 weeks of inspirational leadership and intervention in 90 days time!
Source: Caroline Theobald (Managing Director Bridge Club Ltd)
