MediaCityUK tech hub The Landing to connect scaleups with angel investors

MediaCityUK-based digital and technology enterprise hub The Landing has unveiled new investment opportunities for scaleups and SMEs.

From next month, businesses accepted onto the hub’s three-month incubator programmes – delivered through its Launch co-working space – will have the chance to meet, network with and pitch to a select group of venture capitalists, angel investors and investment consortiums.

Taking the form of a quarterly pitch panel event, it will give participants the opportunity to share their business concepts, growth projections and prototype technologies with potential investors.

Pitches will take place at the end of enterprises’ 90-day tenure, giving them time to hone and polish their propositions with help of The Landing’s support team.

To offer a new twist on the traditional Dragons’ Dens-style investment pitching model, The Landing has partnered with the Barclays-sponsored Eagle Lab team, based on the fourth floor, and members-only bar On The 7th to create a dinner-and-drinks format for the pitch panel event.

This follows a recent pilot evening that saw seven North West investors meet and hear from fast-growing Landing-based entrepreneurs over a three-course meal hosted by On The 7th.

Investors at the pilot event included Alex Buchan from Accelerated Digital Ventures, Connor Cantwell from Cosimo, Colin Shenton of the Shenton Group and Andrew Davidson from Livewire Capital.

Shu-Ling Li, community manager of The Landing’s Launch co-working space, said: “The recent dinner and drinks event we hosted, which saw a handful of Landing-based companies do a quick two-minute pitch to a group of leading investment angels between courses, was such a great success that we have decided to make it officially part of the Launch incubator offer.

“It will give scaleups based at Launch the chance to put into practice all they have learned from the intensive scale-up and business support programme we provide in friendly surroundings. They can also then continue to network with potential investors, and The Landing’s wider business support team, in a very relaxed environment.”

She continued: “When we opened Launch last year we described it as place to ‘Work, Test and Play’, and this more social and open approach to pitching for funding, and making connections with potential investors, is a great example of that philosophy in action”.

The first Launch incubator cohort to benefit from the next dinner and drinks pitch panel event, to be held on October 4, will commence in early July.

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