The Digital Innovation Business Acceleration Hub (DBAH) a business support programme funded through the ERDF and partnered with the University of Bath and SETsquared, to support startups and SMEs in the West of England, recently held an event to celebrate the success of the hub over the last year.

Since launch in 2018 the DBAH programme is supporting over 150 startups in the region who are innovating digitally with nearly 60 of those companies having already completed the programme. The bespoke support includes mentoring and coaching, but can also provide research collaborations with the University of Bath. Another valuable aspect to the DBAH is networking opportunities through events - which for a startup is a great opportunity to knowledge share with like minded people.

The event which was held in October in city centre location, The Brew House, Bath was cohosted as a BathSPARK event with TechSPARK - the information hub for all things tech in Bristol, Bath and the West of England. As part of the event, attendees had the opportunity to hear from two innovative early stage tech start up companies about their business journey to date and how the support they’ve received through the hub has helped them grow.

Garry Pratt welcoming guests to the DBAH first year celebration at the Bath Brew House

Garry Pratt, Entrepreneur in Residence for the DBAH welcomed guests and gave a short intro before running through a video case study from NutriDART, a Bristol based startup providing a digital platform for clinical nutrition research.

Watch the short video:

Garry then welcomed panelists for the evening, Jack Farmer, cofounder of LettUs Grow, who design aeroponic irrigation for indoor and vertical farms and his business DBAH mentor, Mark Thurstain Goodwin whose background is in data analysis. Tim Hegarty, Founder of startup Evershare, a peer to peer platform to fundraise for their projects and his DBAH business mentor Jake Ronay, Investment & Growth specialist also joined the panel line up.

Jack Farmer of Lettus Grow sharing his experiences of the DBAH programme

Lively and interesting conversations took place between the panelists about the challenges of building a new business venture and the various stages of start up to scaling up. Insights were also provided into the benefits of having a mentor and the valuable support received through the DBAH programme. This was followed by some interesting questions from attendees and then a chance for everyone to network and carry on their conversations in an informal environment (by the bar!).

Thank you to the panelists for sharing their knowledge and experience and to all attendees for joining the DBAH at what was a highly engaging event.

If you were unable to attend this event, keep an eye out on the event calendar for the next event and follow the DBAH on twitter for all the latest news.

The Digital Innovation Business Acceleration Hub (DBAH) is a business support programme which provides bespoke support to SMEs in the West of England innovating within the digital sector.

For further information about the Digital Innovation Business Acceleration Hub and to apply to the free business support programme, visit the website, here.

DBAH | Celebration of first year supporting over 150 startups and SMEs