Cambridge Wireless, the Technology Strategy Board and Tech City UK working in partnership to drive UK forward in the bid to become Tech Powerhouse of Europe

To coincide with the inaugural London Technology Week, the UK’s innovation agency, Technology Strategy Board (TSB) in partnership with cluster champions Cambridge Wireless (CW) and Tech City UK Ltd, have announced the call for entries for the latest IoT Launchpad competition, where an investment of up £1 million will be made to support SMEs working on the ‘Internet of Things’.

Announced by Prime Minister David Cameron in March, the UK government will spend an extra £45m on developing ‘Internet of Things" technology, making a total investment of £73 million available to UK technology firms working on everyday devices that can communicate over the internet.

The competition is open to all European entrepreneurs, as long as their company is registered in the UK and has a working connection with either the London or Cambridge tech clusters. Supported by EE, John Lewis and Unilever, the Launchpad competition will provide support to the winning SMEs in a variety of ways from offering match funding right through to offering retail space across selected EE stores, business and marketing support along with mentorship, and distributing new products developed as a direct result of the programme.

For further information contact [email protected] or telephone +44 (0) 1223 967101

Funding is available for to 60% of eligible costs for industrial research projects, with individual grants of up to £150k and estimated project sizes ranging between £50k and £250k. We will consider applications for projects larger than £250k, but grant funding will be capped at £150k. Projects can last up to 12 months and should be led by micro, small or medium-sized companies that we anticipate are likely to be in the early stages of their development.

An integral part of Launchpad is the offer of support to help applicants to raise additional new external finance that we expect will be needed to fully fund the project and its subsequent commercialisation. In addition to receiving project funding, successful applicants will participate in a programme of business support and growth activities that will run in parallel to projects.

The competition opens for applications on 16th June 2014. The deadline for video submissions is at noon on 3rd September 2014.

For more information, please visit the TSB website www.innovateuk.org/iot-launchpad

For the competition guidance document please click here

For more information and to download the Summary document click here