Digital Catapult and Sony Music UK Unveil 10 Black Tech Entrepreneurs Cultivating Innovation in Digital Leisure

• Digital Catapult and Sony Music UK Unveil 10 Black Tech Entrepreneurs Cultivating Innovation in Digital Leisure
• Aug 01, 2023

Digital Catapult, the UK authority on superior digital know-how, and Sony Music UK, have introduced a cohort of 10 pioneering digital-first startups, to take part within the inaugural FutureScope Black Founders Programme. The programme will look to stage the taking part in subject for Black British entrepreneurs within the digital leisure house and assist the profitable commercialisation of their revolutionary new options.

The announcement marks the start of the 16-week programme of actions that may present every early-stage firm with enterprise and funding readiness assist, drawing on Digital Catapult’s decade of expertise supporting UK startups. By way of mentorship, workshops and masterclasses, the programme will look to assist every startup elevate funding within the subsequent six to 9 months, serving to to redress a racial imbalance within the UK’s startup and funding panorama. As well as, half of the cohort companies are led by ladies and half led by males.

Utilizing superior digital applied sciences similar to 5G, synthetic intelligence/machine studying, digital and/or augmented actuality, the cohort supplies wide-reaching options for artwork, music, social media, retail and tourism. From a digital nice artwork gallery made attainable by an prolonged actuality (XR) immersive world, to an AI-powered social media platform designed to construct a neighborhood of music lovers, the improvements on the centre of every enterprise are created to rework the UK’s digital leisure house and convey the sector into a brand new period.

The ten startups becoming a member of the FutureScope Black Founders Programme are:

• Cashblack: Cashblack is a platform that rewards members with cashback after they store on-line with Black-owned companies.
• Deya: Deya is a platform for Black inventive expertise and inventive firms, constructing a brand new strategy for Black creatives to seek out jobs and neighborhood.
• Flossy AI: Flossy presents instruments for customers to create remixable merch and merchandise. It leverages AI to permit customers to return collectively and co-create pictures.
• Happaning: is a crowdsourced occasion preview app. Powered by its patented ViiVid® media format, the app lets a consumer request trusted, real-time video previews via the eyes of the neighborhood.
• Korda: Korda empowers music creators, songwriters and innovators by offering instruments that assist all levels of the music lifecycle, from creation to monetisation.
• Loud Parade: Loud Parade is an award-winning music inventive and sonic branding firm that makes bespoke music compositions geared toward Gen Z for manufacturers and inventive businesses.
• Musircle: Musircle is an AI-driven social media platform that analyses the listening habits of customers to ship their musical DNA.
• Nyangibo Gallery: Nyangibo Gallery is an internet and in-person digital nice artwork gallery, with a give attention to prolonged actuality (XR) artwork.
• Tales & The Metropolis: Tales & The Metropolis is a cultural tourism immersive startup that makes use of augmented actuality (AR) and a consumer’s smartphone to create bespoke cultural metropolis excursions.
• Waves: Waves is an AI-powered web3 market for gathering and buying and selling uncommon beats.

Digital Catapult will ship the FutureScope Black Founders Programme in partnership with Sony Music UK, with each companions having a long-standing custom of selling innovation inside the UK’s inventive industries. By focusing assist towards Black tech entrepreneurs, the programme goals to stage the taking part in subject for the collaborating firms, offering them with data and connections that may result in future funding alternatives.

FutureScope goals to make it simpler for Black founders to lift enterprise capital and efficiently scale their options, on condition that analysis from Atomico, a world funding agency, discovered that 62% of Black founders have discovered it more and more arduous to lift enterprise capital, with solely 38 Black founders receiving enterprise capital funding between 2009 and 2019, simply 0.24% of the overall sum invested.

To offset prices to a enterprise by collaborating within the programme, every startup will obtain £3,000 as a monetary contribution in direction of finishing the programme. This additionally contains further assist from ‘Musiio by SoundCloud’.

To make sure long-lasting, optimistic affect is made for the founders and the UK Black tech neighborhood, the programme is additional bolstered by assist from knowledgeable consultants and mentors from throughout the leisure and tech industries. This contains Sony Music UK and Soundcloud, and 9 purpose-driven organisations that promote Black companies and inclusive alternatives throughout the UK’s tech startup neighborhood.

Justin Cross, Director of Innovation Follow, Digital Catapult, stated:

“This cohort is basically one of the vital thrilling we have now seen for the reason that launch of FutureScope practically two years in the past. The vary of options on present, constructed utilizing superior digital applied sciences, simply highlights why firms like this are a key a part of the way forward for the UK’s inventive sector. The truth is that selecting 10 firms from a powerful subject of candidates was an extremely robust course of for the judging panel, however finally a really encouraging one, that actually demonstrated to us the breadth of expertise that exists inside the UK’s Black tech neighborhood. It’s very important that the innovators on the coronary heart of those companies are given a good alternative to lift the funding wanted to develop their enterprise and speed up their improvement.”

Dorothy Hui, SVP Digital and Viewers Improvement, Sony Music UK’s 4th Flooring Inventive, stated:

“We’re thrilled to welcome an inspiring cohort of founders—all constructing companies round inventive makes use of of know-how—to the FutureScope Black Founders programme. Sony Music is dedicated to serving to enhance variety in digital leisure and we look ahead to supporting the entrepreneurs collaborating within the programme by offering entry to trade experience and our community. We are able to’t wait to see how the companies develop via the programme.”

The programme culminates with a remaining showcase occasion in early November 2023, the place the founders could have the chance to pitch to a choose group of enterprise capital traders.