The inaugural ‘UK and Channel Islands Programme’ of the Grindstone Accelerator programme has concluded with a residency week in Jersey.
The week brought together a cohort of dynamic companies participating in the programme and its esteemed partners, corporate sponsors, expert mentors, and thought leaders across the global entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Having launched in mid-2023, Grindstone’s UK and Channel Islands Programme identified ten innovative scaleups across the UK, Channel Islands and South Africa.
To accelerate technological innovation, in partnership with The Polygon Collective, Kisch IP, Digital Jersey, Knife Capital, Thinkroom Limited, and Revive Impact Partners, the intensive six-month accelerator aimed to make the ten selected companies more scalable, fundable, and exit-ready, while fostering global connections and collaborations.
The ten companies – five from South Africa, one from the UK and four from the Channel Islands – were purposefully diverse to promote collaboration and inclusion, featuring two female founders, five male founders and three scaleups founded by mixed genders. The companies formed a cohort across varied tech-driven industries, including HealthTech, MarTech, FinTech, EdTech and AI, contributing to Grindstone’s goals of promoting cross-sector collaboration.
As the programme reached its zenith, the residency week in Jersey focused in particular on building access to markets and access to funding bridges between the UK, South Africa, and the Channel Islands. The residency week also brought the scaleups together to network with other founders, key ecosystem players and industry connections, hosted at Les Ormes. They were joined by members of the Grindstone team, including Catherine Young, founder of Thinkroom and Managing Partner at Grindstone; Keet van Zyl, founder of Knife Capital; as well as Phillip Faure, UK & Channel Islands Programme Director.
In addition, industry experts, including Keet van Zyl and Julien Draper from VC Knife Capital and Marcus Verrell of Snap, among others, conducted masterclasses on finance, marketing, legal and IP, valuations, and exits at Digital Jersey’s innovation hub in St Hellier. The companies also presented pitches to potential clients, funders, and investors.
Catherine Young, Managing Partner at Grindstone, commented: “As part of our expansion into further territories with our Grindstone growth engineering approach, we launched the inaugural Grindstone UK and Channel Islands programme in 2023, with the aim to expand market access and funding opportunities for the carefully curated selection of startups, to drive cross border collaboration and growth. Acceleration in the classical sense of the word is shifting, and a much deeper and narrower focus is showing much more impact. This programme has confirmed what is possible when multi-located startups engage in meaningful business building. Our 2023 cohort has paved the way for an even better Class of 2024.”
Arron Brown, Business Development Manager at Digital Jersey, added: ‘’We’re immensely proud to be able to host and support this event, bringing emerging business talent to Jersey from across the world – the calibre of the individual entrepreneurs was high. The programme delivery from Grindstone was also first class and it was great to see the personal development and final pitches after the 2023 programme graduation.”
Philip Faure, Grindstone Programme Director and ReVive Impact Partners Managing Partner, said: “What a fantastic residency week we’ve had with ten incredible scaleups in Jersey. Bringing the growth engineer to the UK and Channel Islands has been an incredible journey. Cohort one is successfully in the bag, and we’re eagerly looking forward to launching cohort two in 2024!”
