Conference Presentation, Panel, Keynote
Pitch@Palace - Prince Andrew, The Duke of York and Alumni from the Program
Milken InstitutePrince Andrew, Jayne Van Hoen, HRH The Duke of York, Jared Carney, Tim Guillams, Joachim Horn, Jason Lee, Daniel Murray, Rockwell Shah, Serena Rosser, DAN GALPIN, DAN GALLUP, DAN ARIELY, JOACHIM LECKER, ROCKWELL LEVY JR., DAVID ROCKEFELLER JR., ROCKWELL BROOKS, JASON CHENG YING, ROCK WELLS
- Duke of York founded "Pitch at Palace" in 2014 as a global accelerant for entrepreneurs, distinct from traditional venture capital which often skips early-stage ventures or focuses too heavily on specific sectors.
- Core Mission: The initiative targets the "gap" between angel investment and venture capital, providing "business process engineering" advice to help startups survive early complications.
- Operational Scale: The program selects 42 diverse businesses across different sectors every six months from a pool of 500–600 applicants.
- Global Expansion: Following three years of success in the UK, the program plans to expand operations to China, the UAE, Australia, Africa, Latin America, and the US by 2017.
- Duke's Philosophy: He rejects the "legacy" mindset in favor of creating opportunity, leveraging a "1,000-plus year perspective" to foster global enterprise rather than copying Silicon Valley models.
- Strategic Partnerships: The program collaborates with the Milken Institute and seeks partnerships with professional services firms (law, accounting, banking) to de-risk ventures before they reach VC funding stages.
- Success Metrics: Alumni companies have generated substantial economic activity, including:
- Magic Pony: Acquired by Twitter for $150 million.
- Duke Deck: Raised $3.84 million and secured new partnerships.
- Yo-Yo: Partnered with Café Nero.
- Just Milk: Secured grant funding and increased brand awareness.
- Drenched: Listed among the top 50 disrupted companies.
- Royal Endorsement: The initiative gained high-profile validation when Queen Elizabeth II attended a pitch event, with specific mention of an alum presenting a water-saving technology that reduced water usage by eight tons per week at Unilever's London headquarters.
- Panelist Alumnus: Sam Labs (Joakim Horn):
- Created app-enabled construction toys to teach STEM and coding to children aged 6–12.
- Achieved 250% quarter-over-quarter growth with 65 partners.
- Currently operating in 1,500 schools and 20,000 homes worldwide.
- Partners include Microsoft Education and Intel.
- Panelist Alumnus: Mobula (Daniel Murray):
- Platform that converts mobile web experiences into native apps in minutes rather than months.
- Raised £1 million ($1.25 million approx.) in the last month from high-net-worth individuals, including the Heineken family and former Morgan Stanley vice chairman.
- Plan to expand team from London to Los Angeles.
- Currently in discussions with Instagram regarding partnership opportunities.
- Panelist Alumnus: Helix (Tim Gilliam):
- Spun out of Cambridge University to match drugs to rare and orphan diseases using machine learning and genomics.
- Currently 15 employees with $2.5 million in funding and revenue generation.
- Aiming for a Series B round of $10 million; currently not raising but seeking investor introductions.
- Partnering with patient advocacy groups to accelerate treatment discovery.
- Panelist Alumnus: Illuma (Jason Lee):
- Technology that visualizes complex data in 3D patterns to help organizations (pharma, finance, security) uncover hidden behavioral insights.
- Won competitive bids with the UK Ministry of Defence, Home Office, and Serious Organised Crime Agency.
- Selected for Founders Factory Accelerator backed by the CSC group ($400M fund).
- Currently fundraising for seed investment to tackle data access challenges in compliance-heavy sectors.
- Panelist Alumnus: Paziz (Rockwell Shaw):
- App that uses psychoacoustics and hypnosis to treat insomnia; claims to help over 500,000 users.
- Became profitable within 30 days of paid launch, generating over $42,000.
- Growing 20% month-over-month with integrations in corporate wellness programs (Merck), airports (JFK, Luton), and travel pods (Mercedes, Zappos).
- Developing non-wearable biometric technology for breath and heart rate tracking with clinical-grade accuracy via smartphone.
- Entrepreneurial Consensus: Panelists noted that UK startups are inherently global from day one due to domestic market limitations (60–80 million people) and the legacy of the Commonwealth, contrasting with US startups that may initially focus on the domestic 300M+ market.
- Key Challenge Identified: The "gap" in the UK market is the lack of ambition to build massive scale-ups due to insufficient support systems, which Pitch at Palace aims to address by providing mentorship, connectivity, and "business process engineering" rather than just capital.
- Gender and Selection: The program claims no gender bias, selecting based on merit from a diverse applicant pool; recent winners have included female entrepreneurs and two American PhD students (Just Milk).
- Educational Model: The Duke emphasized that continuous learning ("unlearn and relearn") is critical for entrepreneurs, advocating for a model that integrates mentorship, supply chain advice, and connectivity alongside funding to reduce business failure rates before VC involvement.
- Future Ambitions:
- Sam Labs: To integrate hardware and software to create a new market cap in the gaming/educational sector.
- Illuma: To build a global billion-dollar data visualization company.
- Paziz: To provide "great sleep to the world" for the 2 billion people suffering from insomnia.
- Helix: To become a global leader in personalized drug matching for rare diseases.
- Mobula: To democratize native app experiences for the 99% of e-commerce brands currently lacking them.
- Strategic Advice: The Duke reiterated Marc Andreessen's advice to "not copy what the Valley does," instead adapting the accelerant model to fit specific local ecosystems while maintaining global transferability.