2018 has been a fantastic year for [email protected], we’ve hosted 45 events and worked with 42 different countries. This now brings our total, since The Duke of York founded the initiative in 2014, to 46,556 applications, 107 events, with 1,981 Pitches across 59 countries.
In 2018, we returned to China, UAE, Singapore and Australia and hosted events for the first time in Hungary, Bahrain and Vietnam. We also held [email protected] Commonwealth in London to coincide with the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. ASEAN and GCC finals took place, and once again we held [email protected] Africa in partnership with the Royal Academy of Engineering.
[email protected] events were also held in every country in the UK, with [email protected] On Tour events taking place in London, Huddersfield, Cheltenham, Edinburgh, Wrexham and Belfast, with Manchester and Cambridge hosting the [email protected] 9.0 and 10.0 Boot Camps.
In November, [email protected] marked a significant milestone, with the 10.0 final taking place Buckingham Palace – the first time a [email protected] event had been hosted there. This landmark event gave us a chance to reflect on the success of the last four years.
“When I founded [email protected] I could not have anticipated the journey we are on. But today I could not be more proud of the work we do every single day to support ambitious young businesses.” – The Duke of York
Since [email protected]’s foundation in 2014, £885m of investment has been initiated and 3,669 jobs created in the 729 businesses that have been through our programmes, with an incredible 96.6% business survival rate.
To mark [email protected] 10.0, Cambridge Judge Business School published a report on [email protected], highlighting its strengths in the following areas:
• Access to Capital – [email protected] increases the chances of Entrepreneurs raising funding
• Regional Support – [email protected] actively and deliberately seeks applications from outside traditional start-up hubs.
• Diversity – [email protected] demonstrates a lack of bias, whether related to gender, age, background or geography, and creates opportunity for diverse teams.
• Professionalism – [email protected] increases professionalism within teams and improves talent attraction.
• Long-term support – Unlike many other Pitching programmes, Pitc[email protected] provides long-term benefits for all Entrepreneurs who take part in the programme.
The [email protected] year finished with [email protected] Global 3.0, where 23 Entrepreneurs, from 15 countries across the world, took to the stage at St James’s Palace to Pitch to be [email protected] Global Entrepreneur of the year.
All 862 of the Pitches that [email protected] hosted and heard in 2018, have showed the ambition that Entrepreneurs have across the Globe. Thank you to our Entrepreneurs. Audiences, Partners and Supporters, without whom none of this could be possible.
We look forward to continuing the [email protected] Journey in 2019!
