The Venture Academy
Through its rapidly developing Essex Business School, The University of Essex
offers a novel approach to enterprise creation and development. The simple
principle of 'learning and doing' informs all its research, education and
business interaction programmes. At the heart of all its activities is the
fostering of entrepreneurship or new venture creation and growth. Issues of
business visioning, start-up, early financing, funding growth and business
sustainability are highlighted as areas of special attention. Essex Business
School's Entrepreneurship and Innovation Group is unique in this light, for its
great efforts in value creation at that crucial stage of the start-up and
early stage phases of a new venture. The Venture Academy has been
established to help both learn about and support directly the prospect of these
phases, in their proper evolution, funding and extended support.
The Venture Academy Series
A structured programme of activities, which engages expert help to address
defined growth needs of selected early stage ventures. The series consists of
three separate activities:
The Launch Event
Up to 50 aspiring entrepreneurs and selected business are invited to attend
the launch event, which features contributions from up to two keynote speaker
drawn from the 'successful early stage venture community and a local business,
an event facilitator, and a short information session on early stage funding. In
addition there are Q&A, and pre/post-event networking sessions. Finally, the
event also illustrates ways in which aspiring entrepreneurs can make use of the
learning resources at Essex Business School's Southend campus (learning materials, short courses, mentors, staff and
students).
This event acts as a recruitment/pre-selection mechanism for the second and
third set of events, and is scheduled to last for half a day followed by lunch
or dinner.
Invitations are generally sent out following consultations with key business
support agencies. Research carried out on local businesses also help to identify
an appropriate community of interest.
The 'Investment Readiness' Event
This full day event provides advice and support for 10-12 aspiring
entrepreneurs who have demonstrated sufficient planning and commitment to their
business ideas to justify investing a full day with them in order to develop
their proposals and presentations in a tried and tested model used throughout
the European Union. This event provides information about investment and
investors, and help selected delegates to prepare for presentations to
prospective investors. The day is facilitated and moderated by a leading
Business Angel/Venture Capitalist and a key Entrepreneurship and Innovation
group representative. A small bank of
skilled 'volunteer coaches' with an understanding of local business communities
provides the direct one-to-one and group coaching/mentoring for the delegates.
Selected delegates are also given the opportunity to explore how their own
learning and development needs can be met through the School's learning
resources.
Specific criteria, based on critical capabilities, are then used
to graduate participants to the third and final stage of the Series
' the Deal Day.
The 'Deal Day'
Businesses meeting the specific criteria referred to above, and
'coming through' the Investment Readiness event successfully, are
then invited to attend and present at a 'Deal Day' to investors,
including private investors, regional Venture Funds and
international investor organisations.
In preparation for this event the University provides:
- follow-up session with candidates to assess their preparation for
investors;
- further work on propositions and presentations made by individual
entrepreneurs carried out mainly via telephone and electronic media,
provided by the experts
Selected delegates are then asked to make their final investment pitch to an
audience of investors who vet, assess and evaluate these presentations before
deciding whether and how they wish to fund the prospective ventures.
Finally, all delegates are given a further opportunity to register for
specific courses and/or explore ways in which they could further utilise the
School's resources for their own development. Selected delegates are also given
the opportunity to look at different ways of promoting their ventures through
mini case studies, student involvement, and participation in the School's
research and development projects.
Events
To see if there are any upcoming Events for the Venture Academy, go to the
Events page.