Ten innovative SMEs have been selected for the new Milton Keynes Accelerator; a six-month programme sponsored by Milton Keynes Council and powered by Connected Places Catapult. The programme is designed to tackle local and regional challenges, sourcing and selecting a cohort of disruptive SMEs to test and scale new technologies, whilst developing new opportunities for Milton Keynes and surrounding areas and positively impacting the local economy. 

The SMEs will receive support tailored to their requirements. This will include advice and guidance on investment readiness, technology and product development, alongside introductions to local stakeholders and potential customers. The aim is to accelerate time to market through technology trials which will utilise Milton Keynes’ state of the art 5G testbed, as well as roads and other public spaces which the Council will also consider making available to the SMEs.  

Activities will be delivered by a consortium of industry and delivery partners led by Connected Places Catapult. The consortium includes delivery partner True Altitude and industry partners Amey, Centre MK, Socius Group and Elisa among others.  

The SMEs selected for the programme will support Milton Keynes’ ambitious commitment to become carbon neutral by 2030 and address challenges related to sustainable mobility, renewable energy and air quality, as well as infrastructure resilience and community engagement. They are as follows:

• Active Orbit – Getting people more active by rewarding them for walking / cycling. 
• Dock Lock Charge – Using our universal solution for docking and charging E-bikes and E-Scooters, we work on designing and implementing the right Micromobility strategy for our clients. 
• Karfu – Karfu is an online platform that helps consumers save money and uncover the financial and environmental costs of their mobility choices, beyond private car ownership, by showcasing more sustainable alternatives. 
• Kerbo Charge – Kerbo Charge solves the problem of how to charge your electric car at home if you don’t have access to off-street parking. 
• Pluvo – Pluvo develops and deploys solutions that actively monitor and remove airborne pollutants from the built environment at scale, helping our partners create healthier and safer spaces to breath in. 
• Skenario Labs – Use huge property and financial datasets to help local authorities, property owners, managers, investors and insurers make more responsible decisions around investment and sustainability for their portfolios. 
• Step-Hear – Step-Hear is an accurate wayfinding system for people with blindness or visual impairment, providing also assistance by IoT for people with disabilities and a smart interactive system for public transportation. 
• The Future Fox – Community engagement and insight for citizen-led places. 
• Urban Tide – Help cities monitor transport emissions and improve cycling routes and enable energy companies to share data to reduce fuel poverty and energy use. They do this with uSmart, our AI innovation platform and their unique AI portfolio. 
• Othership – Othership gives the freedom to work how and where you want. The perfect workspace solution, tailored to you and your business. 

In February 2022, the UK Government’s Levelling Up White Paper set out a mission to increase expenditure on public research and development outside the Greater South East by at least 40% by 2030. It also outlined plans for new Innovation Accelerators in Glasgow, the West Midlands, and Greater Manchester.

To understand how, as part of the levelling-up agenda, places right across the UK can deliver truly inclusive innovation, the UK Innovation Districts Group and Connected Places Catapult commissioned research. A team, led by Metro Dynamics and Professor Neil Lee, explored the dynamics of innovation in local economies through interviews with people leading and working in innovation districts across the UK.  The conversations covered how districts are delivering inclusive innovation on the ground, from involving local communities in setting their strategies to employment and training opportunities.

From this research, the report:

• identifies ten levers that leaders in the private and public sectors can pull to make the process and outputs of innovation more inclusive;
• highlights a number of successful projects and programmes demonstrating elements of successful inclusive innovation up and down the country; and
• provides recommendations for key delivery partners including innovation districts, national Government, and local governments.

The Intelligent Mobility (IM) Accelerator is a partnership between Connected Places Catapult and Wayra UK, the world-leading start-up accelerator that is part of Telefónica Open Future. The programme is designed to support leading corporates in solving their innovation challenges in the transport industry by leveraging solutions offered by disruptive start-ups. 

The programme focuses on intelligent mobility challenges set collectively by the programme partners, including specifically the areas of decarbonisation, improving experience and connectivity. Its goal is to develop companies that will create solutions for the most pressing transport problems facing the world today, improving day-to-day life for millions of travellers while creating new industry leaders in Global Intelligent Transportation Systems Market worth $52.59bn. 

The programme is delivered in partnership with Department for Transport, Network Rail, Transport for London, Amey and Virgin Media O2, and is designed to support and guide disruptive start-ups with high-growth potential into the UK transport industry, helping them grow into world-leading companies. 

The team at Connected Places Catapult is excited to announce nine successful SMEs who have been accepted onto the six-month programme to work alongside the partners to disrupt the UK transport industry.

• Esoterix – Enabling transport to better serve the needs of future passengers. 
• Everimpact – An IoT software that combines satellite, ground sensors, and AI data to establish cities and businesses’ carbon footprint. 
• Go Jauntly – A walking, wayfinding and nature connection app to increase everyday walking, active travel and improve nature connectedness. 
• Hello Lamp Post – An innovative communications and engagement platform, connecting people to their town or city using AI.  
• Innovation Factory – Acoustic and vision AI algorithms for a wide range of industries’ safety, security and comfort. 
• Pluvo – Actively monitoring and removing airborne pollutants from the built environment at scale, helping create healthier and safer spaces for us all. 
• See.Sense – Technology to make riders safer on the roads and generate the data that cities need to build better transport infrastructure for sustainable travel. 
• Tandem – Taking 21st century transport technology and adapting it for towns and small cities, starting with shared shuttles to get people to work. 
• Transreport – Innovative software which improves the journey experience for millions of passengers who use public transport, regardless of their accessibility requirements. 

With this varied and often complementary cohort of SMEs, we are excited to see the projects and collaborations that grow throughout the duration of the programme. 

Our SMEs will receive a six-month support programme co-delivered by the Catapult and Wayra, with Wayra providing technical support through a series of masterclasses and the Catapult offering networking opportunities with key industry, government and investor stakeholders. 

Alongside this, they will be supported by the Catapult to develop their solution alongside one-to-one support and expertise from the industry partners.  

To date, the IM Accelerator has generated 33 commercial trials for the 45 SMEs that have participated across five previous cohorts of the programme. Combined, these start-ups have raised over £80M in external investment and £3.5M in CR&D funding. Notable success includes kerbside management and mobility technology firm AppyWay, who received strategic investment from Hyundai and the Sumitomo Corporation as part of its total £7.6 million Series A funding round; and, electric vehicle range prediction technology company Spark EV, who received support to trial its technology on Hyundai electric vehicles. These were both a direct result of AppyWay’s and Spark EV’s involvement on the accelerator.