Entrepreneurs can enter gadgets, home gizmos or wearable tech products, at any stage of development and the winning gadget idea will receive up to £120,000 of crowdfunded investment into their business as well as £100,000 worth of TV advertising from Channel 5.
Two runners up will each receive up to £100,000 of seed investment. All three winners will then enter into a two-year mentoring programme with Worth Capital to help launch their businesses.
The competition is open to UK resident’s aged 18 and over and Worth Capital will be receiving entries until midnight on Monday 23rd March 2015.
A panel of sector experts will then help distil the applications down to just 12 semi-finalists who will all be invited to exhibit at the Gadget Show Live from 7th – 12th April 2015.
The show’s 80,000 gadget-enthused visitors will then have the chance to vote for their favourite idea, giving one of the semi-finalists a “free pass” to the competition finals.
Following the Gadget Show Live, the contestants will be whittled down to just 6 finalists who will all attend a day of face-to-face pitches with the panel of judges in London at the end of April 2015. The three winners will then be chosen and The Gadget Show wants to reveal them on the show at the end of May 2015.
Worth Capital have assembled an expert panel of judges, calling upon their skills and experience in the industry to ensure only the very best businesses make it through.
The judging panel includes:
• Jason Bradbury and Jon Bentley, Gadget Show TV presenters
• Nick Bampton, Commercial Director, Channel 5
• Mark Champkins, Serial Entrepreneur & Inventor in Residence at the London Science Museum and successful Dragon’s Den contestant
• Jon Fisher, Director of Marketing, Intelligent Energy, with over 20 years’ experience in innovation, consumer products and technology
• Nick Schneider, Design Engineer, Dyson
• Morten Warren, Founder and CEO of Native Design, an international design firm behind some of the world’s most iconic pieces of physical and digital design for clients such as Audi, Bang & Olufsen & Bentley
• Alex Johns and Matthew Cushen, Co-Founders, Worth Capital
Worth Capital Co-Founder, Paul Ephremsen said: “The gadget industry has never been more exciting. We’re delighted North One and Channel 5 have joined the hunt and contributed towards a truly exceptional prize package and we’re certain that we’ll be able to find some brilliant businesses to invest in within this space.”
Neil Duncanson, CEO at North One Television, said “This is not only a genuinely positive contribution to the creative and editorial of The Gadget Show, but also an authentic, credible and frankly exciting way of helping the future gadget makers of the UK. It’s a complete win-win and we’re really looking forward to it.”
Nick Bampton, Commercial Director at Channel 5 said, “Channel 5 is an entrepreneurial company with an innovative business approach, so providing an opportunity for the inventor of the winning gadget to advertise on terrestrial TV is a natural fit for us and one that we believe will be of enormous value.”
Crowd investors wishing to invest in Future Gadget can do so from today as the fund is now live on Seedrs. The fund is seeking to raise £320,000 for three winning businesses. Each investor will receive a share of the fund’s holdings, which will include a share in each of the three winners.
Future Gadget is the latest competition run by Worth Capital to unearth the very best new businesses across multiple sectors.
Previous competitions in the retail and app sectors have seen the London based company collaborate with media giants such as Facebook and Metro to find & and launch some exceptional start-up businesses.
Worth Capital work closely with crowdfunding partners Seedrs & have raised a total of £620,000 of seed investment to fund the winners so far. With the addition of Future Gadget, the company hope it will have raised close to £1m across its first three competitions.
Worth Capital’s mentoring division, headed up by Co-Founder Matthew Cushen, works closely with each of the competitions’ winning businesses for a 24 month period to help guide the entrepreneurs to success.
For more details on the competition and details of how to enter and invest visit www.worthcapitallondon.com/futuregadget
