Finance, Incubators and Accelerators, 18th March

With MWC behind us and sunshine in the streets of London, with seed funds, accelerators, incubators and more popping up like spring flowers, is it a Spring-like outlook for companies seeking investment?

We return to the subject of funding for start-ups and SMEs on Monday 18th March having last visited it back in November 2011. Back then we foresaw the arrival of a range of new seed funding and other initiatives as well as the re-emergence of incubators, after a long absence ... with many such initiatives well under way, how has the picture changed, what difference have we seen and what can we expect by way of further initiatives of this kind?

In this context, Mobile Monday London and UCL Advances have been doing our own bit in this area, and started The Mobile Academy, teaching the business, design and technology aspects of mobile. The Mobile Academy opens its doors for its second course on April 23rd, and to celebrate, is supporting this event. There's some more info about that course here! 

John Spindler, CEO of Capital Enterprise - who so brilliantly chaired the last event has kindly once again agreed to chair this event. He's going to set the scene by outlining the options all the way from grants through seed investment and more ... in an update on his comprehensive whirlwind tour at the last event. 

Following that, John will be joined by a distinguished panel representing a range of perspectives on funding, to discuss where we are and where we are going. 

Alistair Hill, CEO of On Device Research (speaking as an Investee)
Nic Brisbourne, Partner at DFJ Esprit
Sitar Teli, Managing Partner at Connect Ventures
Michel Sabatier, Managing Partner at Crelligo
Inmaculada Martinez, Partner at Opus Corporate Finance 

We're looking forward to another extremely lively discussion with the typical Mobile Monday London contributions and questions from the floor - where we expect several alumni from The Mobile Academy to be present and contribute some of their own experience of their journeys.

As usual the venue is CBI Conference Centre at Centre Point. Please use the entrance at street level. Nearest tube is Tottenham Court Road (Central Line and Northern Line).

Also as usual, the event is free to attend, but registration is required and registration is now open at Eventbrite.

Agenda

6.00 pm Doors Open

6.30 pm Presentation by John Spindler

6.45 pm Panel Discussion chaired by John

8.00 pm Networking

9.30 pm Close

The Mobile Academy registration is open!

Following the success of our first programme, Mobile Monday London and UCL Advances are delighted to announce the next 36 hour Mobile Academy master class from 23rd April to 27th June 2013.

Delivered by industry professionals, The Mobile Academy offers a 10 week evening programme for those that want to “make it in mobile”.  There are 3 streams - design, technology and business - and the programme offers practical workshops, clinics and talks given by experienced real-world practitioners – those have “been there and done it”, many from our Mobile Monday London community.  Just like our community, the attendees are from right across the board – start-ups to corporates;  marketers to developers and  all age groups;  it’s this diversity that creates a great learning environment – so our alumni tell us!

One of the principles of our programme is co-curation - meaning that tutors and participants get involved in the production of the course. To illustrate, here is a video made by one of our tutors, Ian Moncrieff MacMillan.

You can see testimonials from the previous programme, a sample programme, who's who and generally find out more at themobileacademy.org.uk.


Places on The Mobile Academy April 2013 programme are now available at £995 + booking fee. You can book your place at moblacad-apr-2013.eventbrite.com!

Discounted tickets will be available later in March at £495 + booking fee, for start-ups, those in education and charities  (there's already a long waiting list for those).

To get us started, our friends at the ICT KTN are once again offering bursary places for 3 lucky people!  Funded through the Technology Strategy Board, the ICT KTN seeks to bring a competitive advantage to the UK by facilitating the development and take up of information and communications technologies and their adoption as key enablers in other industries.

Applying for an ICT KTN funded place is simple: Make your case in 100 words, email it to info@ictktn.org.uk by 8th March (your details will also be added to The Mobile Academy mailing list) and the winners will be announced by 13th March.

This offer is open to all ICKTN members. Membership is free, and if you are not already a member, you can join by visiting www.ictktn.org.uk.

If you are interested in supporting the programme in any way or you would like any more information, please do contact Julia Shalet – julia@themobileacademy.org.uk.