London starts search for next £100m tech startup, £1m funding up for grabs
A competition has launched in London by Digital Shoreditch to find the next tech startup capable of turning a £1m investment into a £100m business.
The competition is being run by Digital Shoreditch and has the backing of local businesses as well as more established organisations and individuals such as The Mayor of London, The Tech City Investment Organisation (TCIO), Taylor Wessing, Seedrs, City University London, London & Partners, London First, Schools for Startups, KPMG and Ketchum.
It officially opened for entries on Thursday at the Digital Shoreditch Festival in East London, taking place between 20 May and 31 May.
"The east London digital and tech cluster around Shoreditch is an amazing place for startups with high growth potential due to first class support networks and like-minded entrepreneurs. We're running one of the world’s largest competitions in history to attract high growth potential companies from the digital and tech space around the globe to London," Kam Star, founder of Digital Shoreditch, said in a statement.
Entrants will have to prove that they have the ability to take the £1m prize and turn it into a £100m business based in London. Current turnover must be less than £1m per year and and the company must have been trading for less than 10 years.
The first stage of the process involves answering some basic questions about the business, which are displayed on the millionpoundstartup.com website and open to feedback. Entries will be accepted until 29 August for consideration. The second stage consists of an assessment, requiring more detailed information about the company, from which a shortlist will be drawn for the final. The final round will take place in December and will consist of "twenty or so finalists", according to the website.
The £1m prize is being raised through a combination of angel funding, equity crowdfunding and institutional capital, all of which is being run through the Seedrs investment platform.
Entrants must have a technology or digital company already in place to enter, but businesses based around gambling, pornography, violence or illegal activity will not be eligible for entry.
People that want to promote specific entries in the competition also have the chance of winning a 1 percent equity stake, providing they have fulfilled the promoter criteria for consideration.