Demo day, together with the graduation ceremony took place at Brixton East on 15.12.15. It was the last day of the 5th Hatch-Incubator programme based in Lambeth.
The room was filled with people from within the valuable Hatch eco-system, as well as people who where interested in the entrepreneurs pitching and in the Hatch Incubator programme.
We were glad to introduce our well known dragons to the audience: Phil Millo from financial services boutique Magpar, Ben Warren from Big Society Capital, Claudia de Oliveira from Senzala, John Citron from J.P. Morgan, seasoned entrepreneur and investor Darrel Sheinman from Gearbox Records and one of our trustees and entrepreneur Gareth Davies.
The dragons were not only rating the performance of the pitches, but rather asking the “right” questions and giving advice to the entrepreneurs. Some good connections and meetings took place in the adjoining networking session. We believe that having the right supportive network is the foundation for good business.
All of our entrepreneurs were well prepared and had 7 minutes to pitch in front of our jury. It was great to see that the past 12 weeks in the incubator program had further developed the enterprises and given them extra confidence.
The pitch was the last step in the program and also a very good opportunity to lay down the foundation for further growth through addressing the actual needs to the dragons. The program was lead by Kate Weiler, who was also in charge of leading the group through the past few weeks.
As one of the participants said: “Although I have been running my business activities for some months, I never thought of myself as a business owner. Through the Hatch Incubator programme, I am truly a business owner with a clear strategy for the future of my business.”
This time, the winner of the Hatch Award was Lee from WildFire. The jury awarded Lee for his marvellous business idea of combining music festivals with adventure festivals. Over the past few years he has brought excitement to more than 6000 people. Lee’s comments about the support of Hatch was a quote from Winnie the Pooh “As soon as I saw you, I knew an adventure was going to happen” – we couldn’t agree more Lee! And the best thing is, the adventure has just begun!
Second place was given to Cemal of Change Please, a social enterprise “doing good, one coffee one at a time”, providing employment to homeless people in London by training and employing them as baristas on the streets of London.
Thanks once again to our partners, who made it possible to have prize money of 600 Pounds + 200 Brixton pounds:
- Senzala restaurant
- Elemental Design
- Phoenix Café
- Brixton Pound
- Magpar
- Flirtology