‘Smart Places and Urban Mobility’ Showcase connects SMEs with investors to commercialise innovation

On 27 February, Connected Places Catapult hosted a pitch day at The Shard in London which saw some of the capital’s, and the UK’s, most influential venture capitalist and angel investors attend to hear about the projects currently underway by our SME Programme with an aim of commercialising innovation.

The ‘Smart Places and Urban Mobility’ Showcase was a chance for us to put forward high-tech SMEs from the urban innovation and mobility sectors to showcase their innovation in front of these investors.

In order to deliver the day, we joined forces with Mathys & Squire, SeedLegals and Raising Partners to curate a showcase of 10 innovative SMEs who are operating in, and ready to scale across, a number of areas including smart transportation, IoT, urban infrastructure, shared mobility, AI, circular economy, safety and security, and many more.

Guests also enjoyed talks from experts who provided context to the ideas of intelligent mobility and smart cities and some of the commercialising innovation opportunities that currently exist in these fast-growing sectors.

Our SME Programme team arranged for some of the most exciting small- and medium-sized enterprises currently raising between £150k and £5m to pitch and showcase themselves in front of the investor delegates.

Many of these SMEs were alumni of our Intelligent Mobility Accelerator. Collectively, these companies have already raised over £33m across three accelerator cohorts and engaged, or are engaging, on over 28 trials with our commercial partners including Hyundai, Stagecoach, Network Rail, Amey, Ferrovial Services and Telefonica.

‘Smart Places and Urban Mobility’ Showcase a success

Talking about the day’s outcomes, Alex Weedon, CPC’s SME Director, said: “At this event, SMEs gained new leads that will help them raise investment to take their products and businesses to the next level. The SMEs put themselves in the best possible position to win investment in the day by attending a pitching masterclass organised by CPC and in partnership with Mathys & Squire, SeedLegals, and Raising Partners.”

Reflecting on the ‘Smart Places and Urban Mobility’ Showcase, Alice Johnson, CPC’s Accelerator Programme Lead said: “Connected Places Catapult works with over 1,400 SMEs, and we’re always exploring new ways to bring integral parts of the eco-system together. This investor pitch day was a fantastic collaborative effort which resulted in selecting a handful of the UK’s leading transport and smart city innovators, and offering them the opportunity to pitch to a mixture of over 60 angel investors and venture capitalists at our first showcase event.”

Our Intelligent Mobility Accelerator is now accepting applications for its next group of business, for more information and to register, click here.

Our new SIMULATE Accelerator, focusing on air quality and micro-mobility, is open to applications. For more detail and to find out how you can get involved, click here.

For details on our SME Programme – which is designed to harness our unique blend of technical knowledge, market expertise and regulatory experience, along with a team of dedicated SME support staff to help drive growth and advice on commercialising innovation – jump to the programme’s area of the website here.

For those venture capitalists and angel investors keen to stay up-to-date with opportunities like this, please contact Alice Johnson directly using the email address: alice.johnson@cp.catapult.org.uk. Please use the term ‘Investor Relations’ in the subject line.