Firstly, the BBC recently released a report in partnership with Experian, which placed Exeter in the top 10 cities in England for businesses with high potential.
Secondly, some of its start-ups, most notably Crowdcube and Fantasy Shopper have garnered attention for their outstanding products and services.
The £10 million project currently provides a supportive and creative environment for 55 ambitious organisations who benefit from the expertise of the University of Exeter Business School, other Innovation Centre clients and SETsquare, an initiative focused on new businesses.
For budding entrepreneurs who feel that Silicon Valley is too far a trip to make, or that the Silicon Alps may be a tad too cold for them, Exeter might just be the perfect city to launch a start-up.
SETsquared is a collaboration between the universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey and partners in activities to support the growth and success of new businesses through spin-outs, licensing and incubation. It has already directly supported over 650 companies, helping them raise over £750 million of startup funding.
Two of the current clients of the Innovation Centre were highlighted by the website Startups.co.uk among the top 20 start-up companies of 2011. Crowdcube offers UK entrepreneurs an alternative way to access seed or growth capital. They simply write an online pitch and decide the amount of equity they want to give away for the investment, then ordinary people can invest as little as £10 towards the target – empowering a nation of armchair dragons.
Fantasy Shopper has also surprised even the most experienced industry insiders with its extraordinary success. Within two weeks of launching, the platform was hosting an average of 14 fantasy transactions per second. In November 2011, it was named as the winner of Amazon Web Services’ global Start-up Challenge – beating competition from Silicon Valley and Asia to be proclaimed the most exciting online start-up in the world.
Shopaholics can create outfits from clothes and accessories, presently in shops and if they decide that playing make-believe isn’t doing it for them; they can buy the outfits for real with the touch of a button.
Dr Robin Jackson, CEO of the centre said “The Innovation Centre provides much more than heat, light and a telephone to its clients. We can enable ambitious organisations to innovate and thrive with our wealth of facilities and services and access to leading-edge knowledge and expertise.”
Allen Alexander, a Senior Research Fellow at the Business School and Director of the Centre added “I’m not surprised Exeter has fared so well in this report. My research supports SMEs in the South West to assess, develop and improve their capability to innovate successfully, by focussing on how they apply and manage their knowledge. Professor John Bessant and I were recently awarded a grant of £80,000 by the Intellectual Property Office Fast Forward Competition to extend our work in this area”.
For such a small city, there seems to be an awful amount of talent but it’s probably too early to say "Watch out Silicon Valley"!
You can read more about the University of Exeter's unique 'One Planet MBA' here!
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