Pitch@Palace is the event that gives startups the chance to showcase their businesses to a bespoke audience at St James’ Palace – and Bath’s very own DoodleMaths has a place on the podium! The event will be held on Wednesday 2 November 2016, and other South West tech and innovation companies will also be present at the pitching and networking event.
“Pitch@Palace is one of the most high-profile events on the start-up support calendar”
DoodleMaths is a Bath-based award-winning learning system for children. Its creation was inspired by the fact many of us are struggling with numeracy.
Nicola Chilman, the co-founder of EZ Education and DoodleMaths, tells us more, “78% of the adult working population have maths skills below grade C at GCSE and this costs the UK economy £20 billion per year.
“The problem is apparent from an early age, as young as 6 or 7, with children feeling nervous and anxious about maths. It doesn’t help that so many adults feel that it’s OK to tell children that maths is hard or that they always found it difficult or disliked it.”
DoodleMaths aspires to raise the standards in numeracy by providing all children with an engaging yet affordable learning tool that is tailored to their specific needs. Nicola says, “In the next year we intend to reach 10% of UK primary schools and engage teachers and parents in the maths learning journey of every child.”
Support for startups
Pitch@Palace offers an unprecedented chance to promote your tech business to the very people who have the ability to make it excel. The numbers speak for themselves; over the past 3 years, Pitch@Palace has helped over 205 businesses grow. But, we caught up with Ali Hadavizdeh, from the University of Bath Innovation Centre, to tell us why Pitch@Palace is so important. He tells us, “Pitch@Palace is one of the most high-profile events on the startup support calendar.
“We found that HRH the Duke of York is really dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs”
“Capitalising on the royalty brand and the Duke of York’s global connections, St James Palace is able to assemble an impressive gathering of influential movers, shakers and decision makers that could facilitate amazing opportunities for many early stage startups, ones that could propel the participating ventures to dizzy heights that could otherwise take them a very long time to reach, if at all.”
Nicola adds to this, “We were surprised and delighted and when we looked into it, we found that HRH the Duke of York is really dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs.”
Representing the West
In addition to DoodleMaths, Bristol’s Inductosense and EasyVideo – both from tech startup incubator SETsquared – will be attending the event in November.
We caught up with William Britton from EasyVideo to tell us a bit about the company, “EasyVideo is based on the vision people with Learning Disabilities can scan anything with their smart device and it plays a video of how to use it.
“To achieve this we’ve developed a QR system enabling them to put a QR code on their kettle, scan it with a smart device and it plays a video of how to make a cup of coffee. Our system works the same for literature too and our QR codes come in various formats such as stickers, cookbooks, posters, key rings and more. ”
EasyVideo wants to encourage independence for those who have learning disabilities cost effectively and efficiently – it’s a modern day solution to communication with care providers.
“This is a great opportunity for us to get high quality input and support”
Inductosense, meanwhile, has developed a product to enable wireless, fast and repeatable detection of cracks, corrosion or defects in structures and products.
Inductosense’s Matt Butcher explains, “We are aiming to secure investment, rapidly grow the team in Bristol, further develop products and progress from customers trialling our product to wider scale deployment.”
A royal opportunity
We asked the attendees what they were most looking forward to about the event. Will from EasyVideo says, “We’re really looking forward to the networking opportunities that come with such a high-profile event.”
“This is also a great opportunity for us to get high-quality input and support around developing our pitch from a variety of industry experts. It’s not every day you get to go to St. James Palace so we’re incredibly honoured to be one of the lucky ones representing people with Learning Disabilities at this year’s event.”
Matt from Inductosense agrees, “We are looking to raise investment in the near future and so the Pitch@Palace boot camp was a great opportunity to start working on and refining our pitch. The event in November will hopefully be an excellent opportunity for us to network with investors and with people who may have links to our target markets.”
Both companies are based in Bristol’s SETsquared incubator and were introduced to the prestigious event through this. Will informs us that, “other SETsquared companies had been involved in previous Pitch@Palace events and were incredibly complimentary about the process and connections made at St James Palace.”
Nicola from DoodleMaths says, “I am looking forward to meeting my mentors – one of whom is Maggie Philbin, a great advocate for science and technology skills for teenagers. When we spoke on the phone, it was clear that we both have the same enthusiasm for creating better opportunities for young people.”
To get involved you can vote for your favourite South West startup now with the People’s Choice Award!
To find out more, visit Pitch@Palace’s website. You can also give them a follow on Twitter: @pitchatpalace
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