12 September 2024 | Newquay
What is Slush’d?
The most founder-focussed tech event on earth
Cornwall & Liverpool are collaborating to bring Slush’D; the ultimate tech startup event, to the UK for the first time EVER! Introducing Startup Cornwall – powered by Slush’D.
A global network of local events
Slush’D is a community-driven movement that aims to create and help founders locally that change the world.
Who's it for?
Budding tech entrepreneurs, startup founders, scale-up leaders, dreamers, innovators, investors, VC’s, business support providers and dragons…
Why attend?
Spark an idea
Not sure where to start but ready to be your own boss? Join Slush’D for an electrifying atmosphere and inspirational speakers, igniting the perfect environment to spark game-changing ideas.
Start your Start-up!
Launch your entrepreneurial journey at Slush’D, where industry leaders, investors, and mentors are waiting to offer you opportunities to transform your groundbreaking idea into a thriving business.
Make new connections
Experience the power of collaboration at Slush’D, where visionaries and innovators unite, forging invaluable connections that have the potential to shape the future of your network and business
Support your venture
Unlock the full potential of your business at Slush’D. Meet mentors, and investors, and gain access to startup resources to help you navigate the path to success.
The 2023 Speakers
Opening Keynote: Dominic McGregor
Founding Partner of Fearless Adventures & Social Chain
Dominic McGregor is a 30-year-old entrepreneur and mental health and sobriety advocate. Dominic is currently a Founding Partner of investment fund, Fearless Adventures and ex-COO of global marketing agency, Social Chain.
Along with his co-founder and fellow university drop out, Steven Bartlett, Dominic helped grow Social Chain to a $300m turnover business with 750 staff in offices around the world, including NYC, Berlin and London.
After building a global client portfolio that includes the likes of Apple, Amazon, McDonald’s, and the BBC, the pair took the company public in 2019 and then exited in late 2020.
Post-exit, Dominic co-founded Fearless Adventures a company which invests in founders who are looking to rapidly scale their business. Through this venture, Dominic passionately uses his experiences and huge wealth of knowledge from building and scaling a successful business to nurture new talent and support other entrepreneurs on their journeys both financially and emotionally.
Closing Keynote: Adah Parris
Tech futurist, creator of innovation model, Cyborg Shamanism, TED Talks Global Emerging Innovator, Chair of Mental Health First Aid England
As a leader in the mental health space and a neurodivergent individual with ADHD and borderline Autism, Adah possesses a beautiful set of cognitive abilities and insights that shape her distinctive approach to experience design. Her neurodivergent perspective serves as a gateway, opening doors to new possibilities and challenging conventional norms. It is through this lens that she invites others to embark on transformative journeys, experiencing the world in ways they may not have previously considered. Adah is able to see connections, patterns, and possibilities that may go unnoticed by others. By celebrating and harnessing neurodiversity, Adah encourages a more inclusive and expansive approach to creativity and innovation.
Through her work, Adah fosters a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness between ecology, technology, innovation, and human experiences. Blending creativity, empathy, and a deep understanding of technology to craft immersive encounters that transcend traditional boundaries. She creates immersive experiences that engage the senses, challenge assumptions, and provoke introspection.
By delving into the intricate web of relationships formed by technology, Adah unveils its true essence as a relational ecology. She recognises that every interaction, every connection, forms a complex tapestry that shapes our experiences and influences our understanding of the world. They challenge us to question our assumptions, reconsider our values, and explore untapped potentials within ourselves. Her work invites us to confront our fears, embrace our vulnerabilities, challenge the status quo and step into a realm of infinite possibilities.
Adah will take the audience on an immersive journey that will touch on the decentralisation of web structures and the potential of Web3, moving from chaos to growth, embracing turbulence and how the Cornish landscape might inspire entrepreneurs to think differently.
Niki Davies
Event Host, Director, Software Cornwall
Director of Software Cornwall and Event Director for Startup Cornwall, powered by Slush’d, Niki, is your event host and compare for the day.
Niki has 15+ years’ of experience in marketing for tech/software companies and is the former Head of Marketing for award-winning cleantech startup, Verv, helping to take them from seed investment to Series A.
Naily Makangu
Founder & Tech Consultant, Athena Leaders
Software Engineer turned “The Mary Poppins of Startups”. Naily brings her multi-faceted toolkit to lead complex software projects and launch new products for seed startups and large corporations like Siemens Industry Software. She helps startups and scale-ups improve the maturity of their tech teams, and prepare for investor due diligence while continuing to deliver what customers expect.
In her talk, “If I build it, they will come… I think?”, Naily will share her expertise on how to test the market and validate your tech product before you spend valuable time and resource building it.
Simon Vincent
Founder & Marketing Strategist, X-CMO
Simon founded innovative marketing strategy company X-CMO in 2018, having spent 15 years in leading London agencies working with global brands.
With a fresh approach and a host of innovative marketing and brand development tools, Simon applies his marketing expertise to start-ups and scale-ups, working with passionate business leaders whose ambition matches his own. Simon empowers them to “communicate what makes them x-traordinary and communicate x-traordinarily”.
His talk, “What your company sells is not what your customers buy” will help you find the real problem your customers have.
Tim Edwards
CEO & Founder, Codices
Tim is the CEO and co-founder of Codices; creating live interactive game shows and corresponding toolkit.
Founded at Cornwall’s venture studio, Falmouth Launchpad, Tim has raised over £2m in funding for Codices. Their product, Quiz Kit, boasts over 3 million players per month on Twitch. Recently, they released a brand new standalone live-streaming platform called Moar, which is designed for short-form live interactive game show content.
In Tim’s talk, ‘How To Tell a Start-Up Story’, he focuses on explaining the building blocks of getting an idea across to investors, customers, and employees before writing a single line of code.
Amy Wallace
Leadership Coach & Facilitator, Bracen Grove, Ex Slack
Amy is a leadership coach and facilitator who works with founders and teams to help them become better leaders. Before that, she worked at Slack for 8 years where she built the App Directory team and had first-hand experience leading and managing change through hyper-growth.
In her talk, “Dealing with Change and the Evolution of Leadership”, Amy will help leaders successfully navigate change, looking inward for the most important lessons and how having difficult conversations are the key to building resilient teams.
Kirsty Miles-Musgrave
Investment Operations Manager, CIOS Growth Hub
With experience in television broadcasting, corporate communications, reputation and project management, Kirsty leads the Growth Hub operations team.
Kirsty is hosting the ‘Finance in Fifteen’ panel to help introduce the audience to the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Investment Fund, grant funding and financial support available in Cornwall.
Anna Staevska
Investment Manager, The FSE Group
Communications & Business Development Specialist with extensive project management experience in strategic communications, business development and program management. Anna’s career spans over 25 years working in the financial sector in Jersey, Channel Islands, as an Associate Director in a strategic communications firm and as a Head of Strategy for Cornwall Development Company, the previous economic arm of Cornwall Council.
Her current position is an Investment Manager for the FSE Group supporting SMEs based in Cornwall and the South West to access to commercially focused finance and address the equity gap in start-up, early stage and development capital.
Anna joins the ‘Finance in Fifteen’ panel to share more on local funding opportunities.
Andrew Finley
Project Director, Access to Finance
Andrew is a qualified business coach with 30+ years of experience in commercial management. He specialises in business growth strategy and investment readiness.
Andrew manages the Access to Finance programme in CIOS that has raised over £40m for clients and will take part in the ‘Finance in Fifteen’ panel.
Nina Hampson
Multi-Exited Founder, Partner, iusegenius
Nina is an award-winning x2 exited founder named as one of the most influential people in fashion in the noughties and is known as a world-leading expert in customer behavioural analytics. Nina now mentors & helps to raise capital for start-ups with positive impact consultancy IUSEGENIUS, guiding them through their Pre-Seed to Series A rounds.
Nina is a judge at our startup pitch competition and is also hosting the ‘Igniting Investment’ panel.
Michelle Law
Partner & COO, QantX
With 20+ years of global experience, Michelle has served as a Director of Strategy, COO, and M&A Director in financial services and as an NHS non-exec. Passionate about Type 1 diabetes advocacy and healthcare tech, she is based in Exeter and became QantX’s COO in February 2023.
Michelle joins the ‘Igniting Investment’ panel to talk about venture capital.
Zoe Rees-Oliver
Head Coach, Crowdfunder
Zoe joins the ‘Igniting Investment’ panel to talk all things crowdfunding.
Allyson Glover
Co-Founder & Managing Director
Inspirational, heart-led leader, pragmatic manager, visionary doer. Passionate about businesses succeeding, business leaders being happy, achieving their dreams, fulfilling their full potential and creating brilliant environments for their teams.
Ally is on the Advisory Board for Startup Cornwall, powered by Slush’d and will be hosting the ‘Cornwall Startup Stories’ panel.
Lucy Jewson MBE
Former MD & Co-Founder, Frugi
Lucy co-founded Frugi, with her husband Kurt, back in 2004. Cornwall’s own organic childrenswear brand, the original vision was to fill a gap in the market by manufacturing clothing that fitted over environmentally friendly (but bulky) washable nappies. The business grew to a turnover of £10M+ in 2018, that employed 100+ people. The business won 3 Queens Awards, was a “The Times” Fast Track “One to Watch” in 2016 (amongst other accolades) and gave over £1M to charity.
Lucy and Kurt sold an 80% share of Frugi to private equity company True in 2018. Lucy has had the ultimate roller-coaster journey and will share the lessons learned in her story.
Jeremy Sneller
Managing Director, TouchByte
Jeremy is a passionate CEO with a demonstrable career history of leading innovation in the information technology and services industry.
Jeremy’s company, TouchByte was recently acquired. Jeremy will share his learnings as part of the ‘Cornish Startup Stories’ panel.
Ilse Daly
Founder
Ilse studied Physics before going on to do a PhD in Bioscience and then started a company that uses AI to track the body movement of horse riders on their own horses. Her app Blackdog Equestrian has just been acquired by Sweden’s Ridesum. Ilse now runs Blackdog Applications, where she specialises in developing computer vision and AI solutions for a wide variety of applications.
Ilse will share her learnings as part of the ‘Cornish Startup Stories’ panel.
Nigel Jones
Barclays Eagle Lab Manager
Following a career in IT, followed by running hospitality and training businesses, Nigel has an understanding of the challenges faced by SME business owners and opportunities offered by Technology.
In his current position as manager of the Barclays Eagle Lab based within FOUNDRY in Poole, he is helping businesses to achieve their aspirations by combining Eagle Labs propositions with support available in the local ecosystem and national connections. Services provided include funding readiness, product builder, scale-up, accelerator & specialist programmes, industry bridges and investor connections.
Nigel joins the ‘Funding in Fifteen’ panel to talk about how Barclays Eagle Labs are supporting the tech startup ecosystem.
Ben Cooper
Angel Investor, South West Tech Advocate
Angel Investor, South West Tech Advocate, Strategic Advisor to StartUp and ScaleUp businesses, Entrepreneur, Mentor.
Ben is the Co-Founder of the Bristol Angel Investor Network, Director at Skowt Consulting and Funding and Support Lead at Tech South West.
Ben joins our ‘Igniting Investment’ panel to share insights on Angel Investing for startups.
The 2023 Schedule
Daytime
The Ultimate Tech Startup Event
Slush is Europe’s most distinguished tech startup event and is based in Helsinki, Finland. Startup Cornwall, powered by Slush’d aims to inspire, inform and help you connect with other budding entrepreneurs, founders and visionaries whilst blowing your mind with some incredible speakers.
09:00 – 11:30
Pitch Competition
10 startups, 3 judges, massive prizes
The pitch competition will welcome 10 startups who have gone through a selection process and will pitch their business to our judges for an exciting collection of prizes. Winners will be announced after the closing keynote. You are welcome to arrive early to spectate but please be respectful of those pitching and keep noise to a minimum.
11:00
The Main Doors Are Open!
It’s time to get Slush’d…
The main doors are open! You’ve made it to Startup Cornwall, powered by Slush’d. Check-in with our team at the registration desk, get familiar with the venue, grab a drink from the bar, check out the exhibitors, watch the end of the pitch competition and mingle.
12:00 – 12:15
Speaker: Niki Davies, Software Cornwall
Welcome to Startup Cornwall, powered by Slush’d!
Niki is the Event Director and Director at Software Cornwall, the team behind this event. Niki will give you a rundown of the day, introduce the speakers and help you make the most of your day and evening.
12:15 – 13:15
Opening Keynote: Dominic McGregor
Fireside Chat with Dominic McGregor & Niki Davies
Settle in for a fireside chat with Founding Partner of investment fund Fearless Adventures and ex-COO of global marketing agency, Social Chain. Dominic will share his highs and lows of startup life, touching on mental health, sobriety and the lessons he learned whilst building a multi-million-pound business in his twenties.
13:15 – 13:45
Pasty Break & Exhibition
13:45 – 14:05
Naily Makangu
How to test the market and validate your idea
In her talk, “If I build it, they will come… I think?”, Naily will share her expertise on how to test the market and validate your tech product before you spend valuable time and resource building it.
14:05 – 14:25
Simon Vincent
Understanding what your customer needs; effective marketing for startups
In his talk, “What your company sells is not what your customers buy”m Simob will help you find the real problem your customers have and help you market to them using his Marketypes Brand Identity tool.
14:25 – 14:40
Tim Edwards
How to tell your startup story; pitching for success
In Tim’s talk, ‘How To Tell a Start-Up Story’, he focuses on explaining the building blocks of getting an idea across to investors, customers, and employees and how he raised £2m investment before writing a single line of code.
14:40 – 15:00
Amy Wallace
Managing Change; the evolution of leadership
In her talk, “Dealing with Change and the Evolution of Leadership”, Amy will help leaders successfully navigate change, looking inward for the most important lessons and how having difficult conversations are the key to building resilient teams.
15:00 – 15:15
Host: Kirsty Miles Musgrave
Panellists: Anna Staevska, Andrew Finley
Panel: Finance in Fifteen
This panel will explore grants and funding options in Cornwall including the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Investment Fund (COISIF).
15:15 – 15:30
Host: Nina Hampson
Panellists: Michelle Law, Zoe Rees-Oliver
Panel: Igniting Investment
This panel will explore crowdfunding, VC and angel investments and important things to consider with the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS).
15:30 – 15:50
Cake Break & Exhibition
15:50 – 16:25
Host: Ally Glover
Speakers & Panellists: Lucy Jewson, Ilse Daly, Jeremy Sneller
Cornish Startup Stories: Short Talks & Panel Q&A
Cornish entrepreneurs share their stories of founding and exiting their business and the lessons learned along the way, followed by a Q&A with Ally Glover.
16:25 – 17:25
Closing Keynote: Adah Parris
From Cornwall’s Landscapes to Web3: A Regenerative Journey
Join Adah on a transformative journey that bridges the beauty of Cornwall’s landscapes with the potential of Web3 technology. Explore how Cornwall’s regenerative strategies can inspire innovative approaches to decentralisation and sustainability. Discover the unique synergy between nature and emerging technologies, unlocking new possibilities for a more regenerative and harmonious future.
17:25 – 17:40
Niki Davies
Closing remarks
Evening
Join us for the After Party!
For anyone who knows Slush, you’ll know that the after-party is a huge part of Slush’d events. Stick around after the conference and sample some amazing BBQ food out on the terrace overlooking the beach followed by an epic party with a resident DJ at Sailors Nightclub. The after-party is included with your ticket. BBQ food can be purchased ahead of the event.
18:00
BBQ On The Terrace
Food, drink, chat
We’re excited to bring you an epic BBQ on the terrace at Sailors which overlooks Newquay’s beautiful Towan Beach. If you’d like to eat, pre-book your BBQ on the registration page. Otherwise just join us for a drink, chat with other attendees and warm up for the after party as the sun goes down!
19:30 – Midnight
It’s Party Time!
With Sailors’ Resident DJ
Wind down after an incredible day with our afterparty at Sailors Nightclub featuring one of their resident DJ’s.
COUNTDOWN TO STARTUP CORNWALL 2024
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The Organisers
Software Cornwall
Organisers
Software Cornwall represents one of the fastest-growing tech clusters in the UK. Software Cornwall is a membership and community organisation that connects, promotes, represents and supports Cornwall’s digital tech community. We aim to be the best way to plug into this fast-growing community.
Our Sponsors & Supporters
