Sustainable Innovation Fund Investment Program

Innovate UK KTN are seeking to run an investment program from May 2022 to support companies awarded Sustainable Innovation Fund grants with preparing and accessing early-stage investment for their business.

The aim of the program is to provide an opportunity for companies funded by the Sustainable Innovation Fund to raise equity finance from business angels and venture capital investors. We envisage this program supporting a cohort of up to 20 companies. Companies will be selected through a competitive process co-designed with the selected supplier. We expect to work with companies raising between  500,000 -  5,000,000.

The program will provide training and support to companies over a series of workshops. The support should help teams prepare, navigate, and execute on their fundraising campaign. A showcase or series of showcase events will provide a platform to allow the cohort to pitch towards the investment community.

The program has quantitive KPIs focusing on the number of connections between the cohort and selected investors and the value of investment raised. We will also conduct a monitoring and evaluation process following the program including net promoter score. Our qualitative KPIs focus on improving individual companies' "readiness" relating to raising risk capital.

Scope of proposals and deliverables required

Proposals should focus on developing and leading an end-to-end investment readiness program to support a maximum of 20 SMEs from the Sustainable Innovation Fund.

We envisage proposals to address the following but not limited to:

• Program design and structure • Support with the application and company selection phase • Workshops and training preparation for the selected cohort • In-person investor showcase • Marketing and investment community outreach

We actively seek creative proposals addressing the mentioned areas above and encourage potential suppliers to think uniquely how they can deliver an industry leading program.

Proposals should outline how they will address each area outlined above and are welcome to design a curriculum to support. We welcome workshops and sessions to be designed creatively and collaboratively across the ecosystem to provide the right tailored support.

Innovate UK KTN will support with the communications towards the Sustainable Innovation Fund applicants in collaboration with the selected supplier.

Proposals should include all costs relating to the program from preparation, program design, marketing and venue and catering costs.

We anticipate receiving single company proposals; however, we envisage that collaborative approaches between 2 organisations may also enable a strong balance to deliver on the topic and are open to this. Proposals should be submitted as one if partnering and outline each other's elements to the proposal.

Budget £83,300 + VAT

Please provide the information requested in the tender notice to [email protected] by 17:00, 15th April 2022.