North Invest hosts Startup Wise Guys Estonian ‘Pitch’ delegation in Leeds during The Leeds Digital Festival
Leeds-based aql and NorthInvest, the angel platform for the Northern Powerhouse, hosted a UK-Estonia “TechLink” event in partnership with the British Embassy in Estonia to showcase Estonian digital capabilities to members of the NorthInvest community. The Startup Wise Guys brought across a dozen entrepreneurs from their accelerator programme, to highlight the vibrant startup and investment ecosystem within their city region.
The event took place at aql’s HQ, in their grade II listed auditorium. Guest speakers included Chris Holtby, HM Ambassador to the Republic of Estonia, Tom Riordan, Chief Executive of Leeds City Council and Calum Cameron, the Managing Director of Startup Wise Guys. After the introductions, digital startups, such as Shipitwise, Teamscope, Step Shot and others pitched their innovative ideas to the North Invest angels and business community.
I founded North to bring together Angel investors and start-up tech businesses to help them scale within the Northern Powerhouse. The event was a great opportunity to achieve this goal, create new links and partnerships, and promote the region’s economic development on an international level.
We’re at an exciting place in the growth curve for the City Region. We’ve got a reputation as a digital region – this is attracting more employers. We now need to grow the workforce and the skills – to do this we need to be working with the best of breed tech cultures such as the thriving community in Estonia, to bring the same vibrant startup culture within our own City.
The growing army of tech companies in Leeds are absolutely at the heart of what we are trying to achieve – creating an exemplar of what a Northern European City should be in the 21st Century.
The SWG teams really enjoyed the high level of engagement with the investor and innovation community in Leeds. The North Invest event presented an active community across verticals that will offer valuable support to any startups heading North.
