Oxygen Accelerator seeking new submissions

APPLICATIONS for the third series of technology business mentor programme  Oxygen Accelerator are now being accepted.

Oxygen Accelerator is a Birmingham-based 13-week, mentor led’ boot camp’ based on successful schemes from Silicon Valley. The period of one-to-one mentoring is then followed by 13-weeks of incubation that culminates with a series of investor days where teams will pitch to a group of angel investors, venture capitalists and private equity groups in the hope of securing additional funding.

Successful applicants will be mentored on how to set up their businesses by more than 60 professionals, including representatives from s firms such as Google, Amazon and PayPal and advice on how to secure future funding from venture capitalist group Midven.

Mark Hales, founder of Oxygen Accelerator, said: “Oxygen is the perfect place for tech start-ups to begin building their businesses. It would be extremely difficult to get the level of advice and mentoring that we offer if you were starting out alone.

“We help to put the business structure around an idea so that a venture capitalist can invest.

“By looking for investors from the UK to support these businesses, we hope they will stay here and flourish – creating jobs and wealth as part of the high-tech ‘knowledge economy’ the Government sees as a key part of economic recovery for the country.”

The last series of Oxygen Accelerator – which is based at Birmingham Science Park Aston – saw several hundred applications spread across 34 countries from as far as Argentina and Australia. Of those who were successful, there were team members from Italy, France, Russia and China.

Following their pitches, all of the eight teams received investment offers and are still awaiting the close of investment rounds.