New Cohort for TechForge (Pre-)Accelerator
Delighted to say that we have now run the first two of our series of 6 ‘TechForge’ workshops. These are non-selective, in-person events, open to any ‘Tech’ founder based in Sheffield. We’ve had an amazing uptake with 15+ people coming each time so far and great engagement in the sessions. We certainly expect to be picking up some of these as 1:1 clients after the end of the Accelerator which is on 18th October (though there will be a networking event for alumni on 19th October too). Happy for colleagues to refer people to the booking website at https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/six-part-series-techforge-accelerator-workshops-2004249. We have upcoming sessions on MVP development, Monetisation and ‘Bagging Your First Investment’. We have some awesome guests too including MVP specialist developers Tietek & Verticode, James from Reef.Rocks and Mischon deReya for the legals. We are close to fully booked now, so act fast! We expect to be running this series again in early 2024.
Grant Update
The Productivity & Digitalisation Grant is now live across South Yorkshire and delivered locally through Business Sheffield. This is the successor to the old ‘Productivity’ and ‘Digital Innovation (DIG) Grants’. There is now a single application form but applicants are invited to apply on that form either for the Productivity Grant or the Digitalisation Grant, for projects up to £25k and £10k value respectively. You do need to go through local authority business advisors to apply but will get help and advice from them with the application. The scheme will be around for the whole of 2024 and the panel meets regularly, so there is no great rush at this time. For tech businesses, the main takeaways are that eligible projects have to involve additional external spend, so internal staffing and ‘normal’ operating costs won’t make for an eligible project…it’s not a great fit for regular product development. But there are still use cases where it might still apply – for example if you are buying in new tech solutions to improve your own productivity, or paying a developer to create a new, tech-based product or service to complement the rest of your business; also if a tech business has a solution that a locally based business may want to buy, potentially their customer could be the applicant. To take this further, discuss any idea with a Business Sheffield advisor (if you have one) or contact the gateway on 0114 224 5000 or businesssheffield@sheffield.gov.uk.
Note that this new scheme is in addition to the Tech Welcome Grant, which is for businesses moving into paid-for office space in the area (either from outside the area, or from an incubation/co-working space in the area). For more details on this, see: https://enterprisingbarnsley.co.uk/programmes/tech-welcome