First graduates from Tech Nation’s Applied AI Growth Programme

The first cohort of entrepreneurs graduated from the Tech Nation Applied AI Growth Programme on Thursday 5th March 2020 at a celebratory dinner in London. The free, nationwide programme designed for founders, facilitated peer-to-peer learning across the C-suite (CEO, CTO, COO and more) saw the cohort undertake peer-to-peer learning sessions; insight sessions discussing scaling challenges delivered by those who have been through the journey before; curated dinners that provided opportunities to network and connect to relevant investors who focus on AI/ML and corporates using AI/ML to solve their challenges, tailored to the specific needs of the cohort and an international trip to San Francisco to visit Google X, a semi-secret research and development facility and organisation founded by Google in January 2010.

Harry Davies, Applied AI Lead, Tech Nation, said: “When you cut through the hype and distant predictions, it can be seen that machine learning is fast becoming a foundational technology that is delivering value today across a wide variety of use cases, as well as creating new ones. It is a layer of automation that will be broadly applicable across everything, similar to ‘mobile’ today. Yet, we heard from founders and investors that scaling a business with AI as the core driver of its value proposition still has unique challenges. It is with this mind that we launch Applied AI 1.0, a supportive network of ‘AI-first’ founders who are looking towards growth.”

The first Tech Nation Applied AI Growth Programme cohort in numbers

45% have one female co-founder
24% a female CEO
35% are based outside of London
£1.9m average raised
£183,000 average revenue
90% are B2B

Judges for the Tech Nation Applied AI growth 2019 programme were:

● Dr. Angie Ma, COO and Co-founder, Faculty
● David Kelnar, Partner & Head of Research, MMC Ventures
● Gillian Docherty, CEO, The Data Lab
● Jem Davies, GM Machine Learning Group, Arm
● Lopa Patel MBE, Founder & CEO, Diversity UK
● Louise Marston, Managing Director, Doteveryone
● Marta Krupinska, Head of Google for Entrepreneurs
● Michael Dimelow, CCO & Co-founder, ADV
● Dr Mike Short CBE, Chief Scientific Officer at Department of International Trade
● Nathan Benaich, Partner Air Street Capital and Venture Partner, Point Nine Capital
● Pratima Aiyagari, AI Lead EMEA, Cisco
● Richard Potter, CEO of Peak
● Sylvain Hanssen, Head of Healthcare Innovation Strategy, Walgreens Boots
● Tabitha Goldstaub, Co-founder, CognitionX and Chair, UK Government AI Council
● Volker Hirsch, Partner, Amadeus Capital
● Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Regius Professor of Computer Science at the University of
Southampton

Insight Peers

The following were insight peers, speakers and mentors to the Tech Nation Applied AI Growth Programme: