International accountancy firm Mazars is back playing its part in the Birmingham-based Oxygen Accelerator entrepreneurial business programme.
For the second year in succession it is backing the scheme which is designed to boost start-up technology businesses through a mentoring programme.
The 13-week intensive boot-camp, headed by entrepreneur Mark Hales, attracts fledgling companies from around the globe.
This year they include CarHoots.com, a social review and market place designed to put the fun back into researching and buying a car; Eat Social, a new way to eat together and socialise; Sorted App, a mobile market place that allows you to buy and sell; UpCloo, a new way to create correlations between web contents to increase your websites page views; Myna, a real time, machine learning testing tool to help businesses increase sales and usability; Wavelit, a new dating platform for real interactions; and WeWanna, a new app which allows the user to schedule time to socialise and play games with friends online.
David Chapman, Midlands managing partner of Mazars, said: “For the second year running we have a fantastic collection of would-be entrepreneurs.
“Already we have been working with them to build their knowledge of finance and figures.
“Birmingham was once the City of a Thousand Trades – today we need the same sort of vision, skill, risk-taking and inventiveness which made this city and country great.
“Oxygen Accelerator is the sort of project which can make that happen. It was a great success last year and it is already clear that it will be a great success this year.”
The idea is to super-charge and streamline new products and ideas so they can be marketed to the world, turning early stage businesses into fast growth companies attractive to investors.
Oxygen Accelerator involves a 13-week intensive “boot camp” which launched at the beginning of October.
The idea is to pitch to business angels, venture capitalists and private equity groups for next stage funding – already that is underway.
In exchange for helping these companies accelerate through the difficult first few months of their business lives Oxygen Accelerator invests for six per cent of the equity of each.
Mazars provides financial mentoring as well as hosting professional training days where topics such as structuring growth finance, intellectual property and business planning are explained to the early stage management teams.