The annual Silicon Gorge pitching competition has almost come to a close for 2023. We were blown away by the caliber of applicants and witling this down from almost 70 entrepreneurs to 24 finalists to eventually just 13 winners was no mean feat.
The early-stage tech and digital startups will be pitching to a room full of investors on 18 May 2023 at the Silicon Gorge Investor Showcase, all organised as part of the Investment Activator Programme. Startups will be pitching for between £100k and £2m in equity investment.
Ahead of Investor Showcase, we’re sharing profiles of those startups who made it to the finals. Next up is Zerofy, founded by Ben Peacock.
1 – What does your company do?
Decarbonisation Platform for SMEs to adhere to Net Zero targets.
2 – What problem are you trying to solve?
SMEs don’t understand their carbon footprint or how to decarbonise to meet the new legislation criteria coming out. Consultancies offer expensive one-off pieces of work and large decarbonisation platforms are too expensive and focussed the carbon accounting, not carbon reduction.
3 – What makes your solution unique?
Zerofy has built an intuitive platform calculating SMEs’ carbon footprint and surfacing partners to help decarbonise their carbon hotspots. Zerofy Academy is an education module to ensure that SME employees understand why the net zero targets have been set and how they will help in their implementation and the SMEs’ carbon reduction.
4 – What are you most proud of so far?
We have several household names in our partner ecosystem and as pilot clients, chasing us for the platform.
5 – How much are you raising and what do you want to use investment for?
£500,000 to build the MVP and scale and grow out the team and client base in UK and Norway.
6 – What tools/people/services/organisations helped you most?
Figma for the scope of work for the MVP. The Zerofy co-founders are highly experienced at corporate level in high growth tech. techSPARK has been very good for networking support in Bristol and the South West.
7 – Where can we find out more about you?
Zerofy and my LinkedIn page here.
This article is written as part of the Investment Activator Programme (IAP) in the West of England. This programme is run by TechSPARK and is kindly sponsored by TLT LLP, delaware, West of England Combined Authority, UWE, Sanderson, Engine Shed and Rocketmakers. Find out more about the IAP here.
If you are an investor and you would like to receive the regular newsletter and event invitations related to investment, please find more information and sign up here
And finally, if you are raising investment for your business and you would like to submit your one page proposition for the next QIB event, please find more information at the bottom of this page.
