Carbon Trust boosts start-up support to help fuel clean tech boom

£1.75m business support for next generation of UK clean tech pioneers

The Carbon Trust is expanding its business incubation scheme in response to a growing need for critical business support to spawn the next generation of clean tech innovators in the UK.  Recent research from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills1 shows business leaders expect clean tech to be the UK’s highest growth sector in the coming years and the scheme will play a crucial role in making this happen.

The incubation scheme has a track record of preparing start-ups and spin-outs to attract all-important investment, with the 90 companies that have been incubated so far having raised around £86 million in private funding.

The Carbon Trust is on the lookout for 25 new joiners to the scheme over the coming year with up to £70k of support on offer to each.  This covers strategic and business development consultancy, advice on corporate finance, management team recruitment and mentoring, product development, market research and engagement and guidance on intellectual property protection.

Incubatee companies typically attract around £16 of private funding for every £1 spent on incubation services.  Companies that joined the scheme in 2008/09 alone have gone on to raise almost £19 million in private investment with the Carbon Trust's support.

Dave Raval, head of the Carbon Trust incubation scheme, said:
“The UK has led the development of many low carbon technologies, but we must nurture and harness the UK’s spirit of innovation and ingenuity to generate the maximum economic benefit from the global clean tech revolution. You may have a great technology or service idea, but to make it fly and become a commercial reality, you need a strong business behind you and the know-how to attract investment.  The incubator scheme has a track record of turning clean tech innovations into high-growth businesses.”

To assist the scheme’s expansion, the Carbon Trust has selected six expert early-stage business growth consultancies who will lead the delivery of the incubation support: Angle Technology, CLT, Conduit Partners, E-Synergy, Isis Innovation and TTP. 

In addition, the Carbon Trust Incubator Network has been established to assist this, and help scout for promising low carbon technology companies across the UK.  The network includes SETIC (East Kilbride), UMIC (Manchester), SETsquared (Bath), Life-IC (Rotherham) and Imperial Innovations (London).

The boost to the Incubator scheme forms part of the Carbon Trust’s Clean Tech Revolution campaign, which aims to make the UK a global hub of low carbon innovation and ensure it reaps the rewards of developing new clean tech industries.  Recent Carbon Trust analysis demonstrated the UK could generate up to £70 billion for the economy and almost 250,000 jobs in offshore wind and wave power alone.

One of the incubator scheme's graduates is Nujira, a company which has developed highly efficient transmitting technology for mobile phone base stations.  With support from the Carbon Trust Incubator Nujira was able to investigate the size of the emerging market in digital broadcast television and the commercial potential for its technology within it.  As a result of the investigation, two significant broadcast customers have already signed up for the Nujira's technology opening up a whole new market.

Tim Haynes, CEO of Nujira, said:
"Without the Carbon Trust we wouldn't have been able to commit significant spend to do crucial market research. Our work through the Carbon Trust incubator enabled us to go on to sign up two out of four of the biggest potential customers in the market."

Scotrenewables is developing a free-floating tidal turbine system and graduated from the incubator scheme last year.  The scheme provided advice and support on the company's business model development as well as its financial plan for fund-raising.  During incubation, Scotrenewables raised £6.2 million in private funding to build a full scale grid connected prototype of its device.

Barry Johnston, Managing Director of Scotrenewables, said:
"When we needed to attract investment to grow the business, the Carbon Trust incubator scheme provided the advice and support we needed.  The funds we attracted have enabled us to go ahead and build a full scale prototype of our innovative tidal energy device"

1 Survey of UK business leaders commissioned by the department for Business Innovation and Skills.  Further information here: http://www.bis.gov.uk/uk-bosses-tip-cleantech-technology-and-media-to-be-the-three-highest-growth-sectors-by-2020