EMBARGOED: 9AM (GMT), 03 April 2019
Manchester Start-ups ‘Helped us Tap into a New Seam of Ingenuity’ Says GCHQ Director General for Technology
• Four Manchester-based start-ups complete first-to-market accelerator programme launched in 2018 to support the city’s unique engineering heritage
• Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham believes participating entrepreneurs represent ‘the calibre of talent we have in the North West’
• Launched in partnership with Wayra UK, the inaugural cohort gained significant traction during the intensive 3-month programme
MANCHESTER — 03 April, 2019:
Four start-ups emerge from the ‘GCHQ Engineering Accelerator Manchester’, a ground-breaking programme launched by GCHQ, a world-leading intelligence, cyber and security agency, and Telefónica’s innovation arm, Wayra UK, having secured rapid growth for their businesses during the intensive 3-month programme.
At an undisclosed location, PlaceDashboard, Jobseekrs, Locometric and Y?Not, gained exclusive access to the unrivalled technological and security expertise of GCHQ as well as IT heavyweight Cisco and Manchester Science Partnerships (MSP), to expand capability, improve ideas and devise cutting-edge products in areas including data engineering, machine learning and automation.
The inaugural cohort shared its successes in front of 100 attendees at an exclusive Demo day in Manchester which included keynote speeches from the GCHQ Director General for Technology and Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham.
During the course of the programme, PlaceDashboard closed a six-figure deal and increased revenues to help consolidate and strengthen its position as a big data disruptor. Locometric expanded its reach into the US market by securing a major partnership and building a closer relationship with technology giant Apple. jobseekrs were able to bring onboard 10 new strategic partners, while Y?Not used the opportunity to validate their concept ready for a launch soon.
GCHQ also leveraged the opportunity of working alongside those start-ups operating on the frontiers of innovation.
Speaking at the Demo day, the GCHQ Director General for Technology, discussed the impact the programme had had on the intelligence agency’s software engineers: