£2m tech accelerator scheme launched
Leeds-headquartered software development and systems integration specialist, IDS Group, has announced a £2m tech accelerator scheme to fuel the growth of UK SaaS businesses.
Eight pots of £250,000 are available for innovations irrespective of sector or geographical location.
The financial pledge augments IDS Group’s tech accelerator programme for SaaS entrepreneurs – a six-month assignment which seeks to supercharge the growth of ground-breaking technologies that haven’t yet been able to secure significant growth funding.
The accelerator initiative includes everything from initial research, discovery and architecture design, through to the launch of applications, the creation of sustainable and scalable development roadmaps, and introductions to initial industry contacts.
Success stories to date include digital works management platform eviFile, insurtech software ManageMy, document management system PandaDoc, healthcare assessment software for NHS Trusts – Lancaster Model, and TimboRetro – agile events facilitation software.
IDS Group’s founding CEO, Nick Halliday, said: “From health tech to construction tech and everything in between, there are some extremely exciting things happening in the world of SaaS right now.
“But bootstrapped businesses are often prevented from reaching their full potential, or at least slowed down because entrepreneurs are forced to make short-term decisions that are either at odds with longer-term risk mitigation, or that fail to capitalise on true market potential.
“Other innovations may secure initial investment with relative ease but find the leap to seed or Series A funding impossible.
“Our goal is to support entrepreneurs to build highly scalable, robust and marketable SaaS solutions to demonstrate they can easily grow to three to five times their size, so they secure longer-term investment and achieve much higher returns and valuations.
“In terms of an organisation’s ‘readiness’ for investment, we evaluate things differently to a normal fund.
“We’re looking at the nearer-term market opportunity associated with the technology, so we will even invest in more mature businesses that need a little help to strengthen their proposition to reach the next level of growth too.”
The hunt is now also on for more senior technical and business advisory specialists to join IDS in the team’s three core locations – Leeds, San Francisco and Minsk.
Away from the tech accelerator programme, IDS has experienced a busy 12 months despite COVID-19, having secured projects with Innovate UK, Mace, NHS Digital and SE Controls since the outbreak of the pandemic.
