Duke hails 3,000 jobs created by his Pitch@Palace tech initiative

THE DUKE of York’s Pitch@ Palace initiative to boost the UK’s tech start-ups has sparked £800m of investment in the fledgling businesses, Prince Andrew has said.

The platform given to entrepreneurs to pitch their innovative ideas to a panel of experts has helped attract investors and seen 3,000 jobs created.

Speaking at the latest Pitch@ Palace final at Buckingham Palace on Thursday night, Andrew said: “If I think back to 2014 when we first launched Pitch@Palace, I don’t think I could have imagined we’d be here today.”

He added: “Pitch@Palace is a mutually supportive operating system for ambitious young businesses seeking to scale and grow, and we are now firmly placed in the growth economy.

“To date, we’ve seen nearly 50,000 entrepreneurs apply to become part of our ‘clan’ which is remarkable.”

Andrew founded the project to connect start-ups with investors, mentors and industry figures and he mentioned how the project’s annual report highlighted the large investment figure.

He said: “We’ve held just under 100 events, and have 687 alumni who’ve created for themselves just over £800 million of economic activity into these businesses.

“Most importantly, we’ve created over 3,000 jobs, but what I’m most surprised by is that we’re running at a 96.5 per cent survival rate, which I’m led to believe is unusual for the start-up and scale-up world.”

The value of Pitch has been studied by the Entrepreneurship Centre of Cambridge University’s Judge Business School. It found the initiative increased the chances of entrepreneurs receiving funding, especially those living outside the golden triangle of London-Oxford-Cambridge, it boosted the professionalism of start-ups and improved their talent attraction.

Winners from Pitch@Palace 10.0 included Stasher, which is building one of the world’s largest urban storage networks. Its platform connects travellers with hotels and shops where they can store bags, leaving them free to explore.