The Big House Accelerator Programme, run by Nottingham Business School (NBS), provides early-stage and established businesses in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, with a series of exclusive workshops and mentoring programmes worth over £10,000.

The pilot programme in 2018 saw high levels of success from its participants, resulting in them refining their products and services, winning new business, hiring new staff, and successfully securing Innovate UK funding.

A previous participant, Georgina Fairhall, Work & Communications Ltd said: “The Big House programme and Accelerator has taken my business to another level. I have now launched an app and I’m finishing preparation for my first round of investment.”

Starting in January 2021, the second iteration of The Big House Accelerator will be delivered virtually. The aim of the programme is to help ambitious tech businesses in the area to grow fast.

The businesses align under a broad theme of software services for ‘risk management’. They include:

• Weather Logistics, a specialist Climate Tech firm that supplies seasonal weather predictions for grower organisations and agronomists.
• eSpire Technology’s new service called ‘My Home Working’ is a mobile App that gives its users the required understanding and ability to work safely, in good health and effectively when working at home or away from the office.
• eduTrips is a trip management platform for schools and colleges looking to transform how trips are managed by implementing trip management processes, which saves time, money and ensures trips are run safely.
• AppliSaaS Ltd offer bespoke design services for businesses that have fallen behind in their ICT, with a particular focus on the Demolition and Construction industries. AppliSaaS is embarking on an ambitious project to create an end-to-end solution for digitising and automating on-site paperwork to greatly improve efficiency and productivity in teams on-site and in the back office.
• Esitu Solutions has developed an innovative, evidence-based method of assessing and improving driver safety that can reduce on-road collisions, decreasing both the human and financial costs of such an incident. Based on the underlying theoretical framework of Situation Awareness, their video-based assessment tests can identify those drivers who are more at risk of a collision, while their training tools can then improve their skills and reduce their crash-likelihood.
• Hazid Technologies helps process manufacturing industry companies (in markets such as power, chemicals and pharmaceutical) to achieve their digital strategy aims, improving efficiency, quality and process safety through unique software and associated services.
• CS Design Software has been producing sophisticated software products for the professional landscape and external works market since the 1990s. Focus has been on delivering efficiencies to how project information is managed within design and construction workflows.

A secondary cohort has also been formed following successful pitches by SME participants. This group will receive a package of events and mentoring to get them ‘Accelerator-ready’.

The Accelerator is part of the Big House Programme – a £4.4m support scheme for creative and digital industry businesses – delivered through a partnership of business support organisations in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. The programme is supported by the European Regional Development Fund and the East Midlands Engine.