Climate Innovation Platform welcomes second cohort

The Climate Innovation Platform (CIP) has welcomed its second cohort of 14 SME’s focused on driving energy technology innovation.

The group of SME's from the second cohort of the Climate Innovation Platform stand outside the Birmingham Energy Innovation Centre

The group of SME's from the second cohort of the Climate Innovation Platform stand outside the Birmingham Energy Innovation Centre

Supported by HSBC UK and the European Regional Development Fund and delivered by the University of Birmingham in partnership with Energy Systems Catapult, the CIP programme provides the SME’s with tailored packages of support to drive the commercialisation of innovative energy products and services.

Each of the businesses enrolled onto the CIP programme will have access to; business engagement, acceleration and incubation support; start‐up mentoring; market research reports; funding and investor opportunities; advice on regulations; a dedicated support team as well as incubation space at Tyseley Energy Park.

This video introduces the Climate Innovation Platform and the benefits it can offer to SMEs..

Transcript

Title: Climate Innovation Platform

Duration: 3.16 mins

Begins

[Logo of Climate Innovation Platform]

[Professor Martin Freer, Director of the Birmingham Energy Institute.] CIP, the Climate Innovation Platform is a platform for supporting businesses, driving their innovation, taking products and services through into market.

[Michael Boxwell, Group CEO, Voltempo Limited.] We got involved with the CIP program because we needed a lot of extra support, we were very keen and very enthusiastic, very knowledgeable engineers, we weren't necessarily good business people. We needed a hand in making sure that we could get to that stage where we were an investable business, where we had a proper product design where we could be relevant to the market and we've done a lot of that because of the CIP.

[Paul Jordan, Business Leader, Energy Systems Catapult.] We take what we call a whole systems thinking that we bring and what that means is thinking about how you understand the physical system but also the end user, the consumer challenges, but also thinking about the challenges between the different energy vectors. We at the Catapult have all those capabilities that we can help those SMEs address, those challenges wherever they may be.

There's significant capability there and a significant amount of investment and assets and tools and techniques that you can tap into.

[Rishi Chowdury, Co-Founder, Incube.] We've joined the CIP program really to understand a bit more about the industry and get access to more contacts within the space. It'd be great to also get some pilots out of it, network is really important for us we're excited to be here.

[Martin Freer] HSBC fund the program, providing financial support to the businesses. They fund the space that we have here that businesses can come and occupy at Tyseley Energy Park and they are funding the supporting program delivered by the Energy Systems Catapult.

[Rosie Griffiths, Creative Director, Olwg.] We joined the CIP programme because we really want help with the digital marketing side of things and how we can really bring the product to market and transition from where we are now to a good SAAS platform.

[Paul Jordan] Innovators need direct hands-on help, they need that business coaching, so we also have really experienced incubation managers in our energy launch launchpad accelerator and also get them ready for investment and start to link them into the investment community as well.

[Martin Freer] We are helping businesses through a whole variety of services and support programs. At the University we can help them develop through research and development their product, through the Energy Systems Catapult analyse their business proposition, we can help them develop IP and register IP, develop patents and we can help them with market analysis. Those are just some of the examples of the way that we can support businesses.

[Logo of Climate Innovation Platform. To find out more birmingham.ac.uk/energy/cip]

[Delivered by the University of Birmingham Energy Institute logo, in partnership with the Energy Systems Catapult logo.]

[Supported by HSBC UK logo and European Regional Development Fund logo.]

Ends

Over a recent two-day induction launch event the SMEs were given a taster of the tailored support available to them throughout the programme and had an opportunity to:

  • present their business elevator pitches to a panel of investors
  • attend private surgery sessions to discuss the needs and challenges of their individual business
  • hear from an alumnus on the CIP cohort one cohort
  • tour the incubation space and wider Tyseley Energy Park site

It has been a pleasure to launch the second cohort for the Climate Innovation Platform and welcome 14 more innovative SMEs on to the programme. We were able to make a real difference to the 13 businesses we welcomed on cohort one and we look forward to seeing what the SMEs on cohort two will achieve with the tailored packages of support we are able to offer via the programme.

Professor Martin Freer, Director of the Energy Research Accelerator and the Birmingham Energy Institute

It’s wonderful to welcome the second cohort into the Climate Innovation Platform, working in partnership with BEI and Tyseley Energy Park. ESC’s Energy Launchpad incubation team is looking forward to building on the successes of the first wave, helping this next cohort of exciting energy innovators accelerate their Net Zero journey.

Paul Jordan, Energy Launchpad business lead at the Energy Systems Catapult