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Defence and Security Accelerator connects innovative companies to potential investors to benefit UK capabilities and prosperity
For a third year, in a row the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) has provided a platform for innovative companies to pitch their businesses and novel technology to investors at the Investment Showcase event.
An invited audience, ranging from angel investors to brokers and venture capitalists, attended the DASA Investment Showcase event in London at the end of November 2021. Seventeen small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) presented their innovative business opportunities and technologies to investors. The SMEs demonstrated how their technologies have commercial potential and offer better performance and increased capability for defence and security.
The SMEs in the showcase were grouped by technology area to allow investors to easily identify those of particular interest. The categories were:
The array of innovations presented included:
Each SME that presented at the showcase has previously received either defence or security funding via DASA. When asked about their experience of working with DASA, one SME said, ‘DASA has been fantastic to enable us to develop very high risk technology concepts and bring them much closer to the market in both defence and security and also other dual-use applications.’
Another SME commented on the value of events like the Investment Showcase to SMEs, ‘Investment is quite a time consuming process so having a concentration of vetted, relevant investors brought to us has undoubtedly shaved a substantial amount of time off our fundraising process.’
DASA offers their funded companies access to business mentoring and finance advice via the Access to Mentoring and Finance (A2MF) service, which includes pitch training being a core training element. Alan Scrase, A2MF Lead for DASA, commented: ‘We fund companies to develop their technology and an important part of the package is actually helping them develop their businesses. To do that we are introducing them to investors from a wide range of communities from business angels to venture capitalists through other funds like family funds.’
Alan further commented on the added value DASA provided to the SMEs to prepare for this event; ‘we spend about a day and a half with each company helping them to get their pitch, their presentation, and how their slide deck works, for the audience, and then we practice it with them.’
Click to learn more about the A2MF team
DASA has received positive feedback from the investors that attended the event. One investor commented, “I absolutely loved the Investment Showcase – well organised and some great companies on show”, whilst another investor said, “It was an excellent event and very interesting to get to know more about the companies chosen for the showcase; there was a good range of technology themes present.”
Investors who are interested in more details about UK innovations are welcome to get in touch with DASA to find out more about the companies that showcased this year and the associated investment opportunities.
What is the Defence and Security Accelerator?
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