Cheltenham, UK – Wednesday 14th August 2024: Grown in Cheltenham, the business support programme from Hub8 by Plexal, Cheltenham Borough Council (CBC) and The Growth Hub, has welcomed three Gloucestershire-based founders to its first cohort.
The programme launch follows July’s grand opening of the CBC and Hub8 by Plexal’s MX Innovation Centre – where the newest of The Growth Hub’s six sites is located. This aligns with the MX aims of fuelling business growth, nurturing the tech ecosystem and connecting community.
Providing an opportunity for local business leaders to fast-track their companies, Grown in Cheltenham offers six months of free, tailored support and founders are still welcome to apply. The innovation initiative will help startups with everything from building a customer roadmap and making their first hire to guidance through times of change and advice on where to go next.
The existing cohort will receive bespoke insights from business experts at The Growth Hub, which has supported over 14,000 Gloucestershire businesses to date.
Additionally, Andrew Roughan, CEO at innovation company Plexal – which has a majority share in Hub8 by Plexal – will provide individual mentoring support to each founder. Having scaled an organisation that collaborates with government departments, large enterprises, academia and exciting startups from across the UK and overseas, Andrew has unique experience to draw on that can help founders overcome stumbling blocks and move forward.
The Grown in Cheltenham cohort includes:
Alice Violet, Founder and Creative Director of Alice Violet Creative
Alice Violet Creative is a content marketing agency specialising in complex brands. With a unique luxury and cyber security background, Founder Alice combines her expertise to position tech and cyber brands as the gold standard of their industry through strategic digital storytelling.
Alice is passionate about making cyber security accessible and engaging, demonstrated with her Cyber Made Human podcast where she chats with industry leaders about everything from quantum computing to spyware in simple language. She joined Grown in Cheltenham to gain support during Alice Violet Creative’s growth phase, seeking guidance to maintain quality while scaling her in-house team and client base.
James Campbell, Co-founder and CEO of Growm
Growm is making ecommerce immersive with advanced 3D and augmented reality solutions. The business enhances brand sales by creating lifelike 3D, virtual and augmented experiences for customers that boost buyer confidence and engagement – bridging the gap between physical and online shopping.
Starting his career at McLaren Automotive before progressing to other engineering roles at the likes of Dyson, Growm CEO James joined the Grown in Cheltenham programme to access a unique community of mentors and tech companies. He hopes to gain a focused, personalised approach to business growth and is looking for support in go-to-market strategies and growth plans while building connections alongside exploring funding options.
Ollie Johnston, Adam Westrope, Rebekka Bishop and Andy Fellowes, Co-founders at Zest Intelligence
Zest Intelligence offers specialist management consultancy services to sensitive and highly regulated industries. It does this by implementing data management, digital transformations and cloud strategies, incorporating solutions ranging from AI to data analytics and more.
Established in 2024 by entrepreneurs with over 50 years combined with HMG, the team unites industry talent in an environment empowering everyone to pursue their life goals, while exploring and innovating to reach their full potential. Having acted as mentors for other innovation initiatives in the past, the directors desire support as founders and hope to learn from industry experts and best practice insights as they connect with like-minded entrepreneurs.
Andrew Roughan, CEO at Plexal, the Delancey-founded innovation company, says: “Grown in Cheltenham is the next phase of our commitment to support the local community and help unlock its potential to secure the town’s future progress. We know that there’s been a lot of anticipation for the arrival of the MX, so I’m excited to work with the ambitious founders at Alice Violet Creative, Growm and Zest Intelligence and monitoring their journey over the next six months.”
