The Web Mission is taking 20 UK Web Entrepreneurs out to Silicon Valley at the end of April this year. The point is to enable the successful entrepreneurs to build relationships with great people in the US and to explore opportunities for their companies.
The Web Mission is supported by UKTI (UK Trade Invest), HSBC, TechCrunch UK and Make Your Mark (the National campaign for enterprise). It’s organised by Oli Barrett (and Dailynetworker.co.uk ) and by Polecat. Other partners include Covered, YouNoodle and TEN.
The trip itself will be a blend of organised activities from drinks receptions to one-to-one meetings and opportunities to visit companies in Silicon Valley, from VCs to start ups to high growth success stories. It is designed to coincide with Web 2.0 Expo, so there will be time to drop into that if this is interesting to the companies. We’ll be working with Covered, YouNoodle in the US to help us populate a ‘local calendar’ of coffee shops events and informal drinks, the vibrant business scene for which San Francisco is rightly famous for. An outline agenda is on the web site.
Yesterday, we opened up the application process to companies all over the UK. The entries will be filtered by UKTI, and individuals who have agreed to feed into that process include Mike Butcher from TechCrunch UK and entrepreneur Doug Richard. They will be looking at the organisation’s market potential, technology, traction, go to market strategy, management team and commercial viability. Polecat will be assessing the applicants’ sustainability (People, Planet, Profit) impact. The successful companies will pay a nominal fee which will cover flights, accommodation and passes to Web Mission activities. This will come at a subsidised rate, thanks to the sponsors.
The registration site is here:
The latest agenda is here:
February 11, 2008 at 7:16 pm
This is an excellent (and much needed) idea – congratulations to those involved! We will be definitely applying for a place!
Simos
February 25, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Great idea and timely for us as we are funding a growth initiative to enter the US this year. Hopefully we will be successful however, the idea will remain a great one with or without Caspian. Great work guys.