Tech and innovation hub reveals plans to double Nottingham footprint

Accelerate Places, the technology and innovation hub for scale-up businesses in Nottingham, says it wants to double its footprint in the city.

Launched in late 2016, Accelerate Places took offices on Wollaton Street which were formerly occupied by accountancy firm RSM and converted them.

Some of the space in the four-storey building is occupied by fintech businesses owned by its parent company, Blenheim Chalcot – among them specialist lender Oakbrook, business finance firm Liberis and fintech developer Bizfitech.

The rest of the space is home to a number of scale-ups, new ventures and other businesses run by serial entrepreneurs developing new technology solutions.

There is also a pipeline of businesses waiting to move into Accelerate Places, which takes a unique approach to providing space for growth businesses. As part of Blenheim Chalcot, it has access to the expertise responsible for growing a series of major business success stories, among them TDX Group and ClearScore – which was launched less than four years ago and recently sold to Experian for £295m.

Jason Incles, managing director at Accelerate Places, said: “We acquired this building in 2016, invested heavily in transforming it into a destination tailored to the needs of tech and scale-up businesses, and it’s now full of enterprises which range in size from two people to more than 100.

“It’s been great to welcome these businesses and support their growth because they provide all the evidence you need to show that Accelerate Places is a concept that works.

“But their success has left us with a challenge because there is now a pipeline of businesses who would like to join them. On top of that, Blenheim Chalcot’s businesses continue to grow here.”

Mark Sanders

Incles and his team have spent the last few months scouting for a second location in Nottingham, with the search continuing.

“We are desperately keen to try to find new space here so that we can serve what we know is a need in the East Midlands market,” he said. “We have also seen businesses relocate here from London because property costs there are so high.

“Nottingham remains the main focus of our search but we will have the cast the net more widely if the right location is not available.”

Besides the four floors of office space, Accelerate Places Nottingham has a communal café and event space, along with technology-enabled meeting rooms.

Accelerate Places also has plans to open in Birmingham and Edinburgh.

The Nottingham site is currently home to more than 250 people. It is thought a second building in the city would have capacity for a similar number.

Mark Sanders, chief executive of Accelerate Places, said: “Nottingham has been a big success for us but we knew it would be because of the momentum behind fintech and data-driven businesses here. Taking away the hassle of managing the office allows those businesses to focus on growth and innovation – which we help them with.

“We’re in the process of developing an expanded network of Accelerate Places in key cities and we hope that a bigger presence in Nottingham can be part of that.”

Blenheim Chalcot has a portfolio of businesses which employ more than 3,000 people and have annual sales exceeding £300m. Its ventures include market leaders like Agilisys and the developer of one of the first wave of open banking APIs, OpenWrks.

It is led by four partners – Manoj Badale, Charles Mindenhall, Mark Onyett and Dan Cobley. Onyett was one of the founders of TDX Group, which was sold to Equifax for £200m, while Cobley is the former MD of Google in the UK. Both held senior positions with Capital One earlier in their careers.

Blenheim Chalcot’s chief executive is Kate Newhouse, who formerly led a health tech business.

It is currently headquartered at Accelerate Places in Hammersmith in London, but revealed plans earlier this year to develop a flagship destination called Scale Space, a joint venture with Imperial College Think Space, which is being built at its White City campus in London.

It will be home to more than 2,500 people when it opens in 2019 and is expected to become a major destination for innovation, research and entrepreneurship.