SOUTHAMPTON Science Park has revealed details of its 2019 Catalyst programme which gives a leg-up to start-up businesses.

Such has been the demand for places on the programme, the decision has been taken to run three shorter, more intensive schemes each year rather than one annual programme

Catalyst, is aimed at entrepreneurs with an early stage business – or an ingenious idea for one – no matter whether they’ve been in business before or not.

On completion, participants will have created an investment-ready business plan, management team plan and funding plan and benefitted from high-level one-to-one mentoring and commercially focused weekly workshops with top business leaders.

The value of the advice and assistance is estimated to be £15,000 per company.

One start-up to benefit from the Catalyst programme was Utonomy Ltd, which developed an innovative technology to automatically monitor and control gas distribution networks to make them more efficient and sustainable.

Since successfully applying to Catalyst in 2015 the company has grown quickly, securing its first contract of more than £500,000 and attracting significant investment to accelerate future product design and development. The company remains at Southampton Science Park and now employs 12 people.

CEO Adam Kingdon said: “I believe we have an incredible future ahead of us. We’ve been able to raise significant investment of over £2m with the potential to grow into a very substantial business. Part of that is due to the very good start we’ve had at Catalyst. It can get any new business off to the best possible start.”

Catalyst founder and Science Park CEO, Peter Birkett, explains: “We have been working to find ways to increase capacity on Catalyst. Getting fledgling ideas to market quickly has never been more critical, so our aim with Catalyst 2019 is to fast-track compelling business concepts into high potential commercial operations by shortening and intensifying the programme and hosting three schemes annually. We look forward to welcoming our first group of entrepreneurs this Spring.”

The first Catalyst programme for 2019 commences in April with introductory days being held in March. Visit www.science-park.co.uk/grow/start-up/catalyst/fast-track-your-business-idea.