London calling…CTI Market Entry Camp UK is open for start-up business

The UK is Europe’s largest IT market, several multinational IT companies are present and there is also a vibrant IT start-up scene. Does this mean that the Market Entry Camp in London is interesting especially for IT start-ups or would you recommend your program to start-ups from other industries (Medtech, Biotech, Cleantech) too?
Lutz-Peter Berg: The UK is actually a rewarding market for companies in many sectors. The UK’s Biotech sector, for example, is the biggest in Europe so there are plenty of opportunities for Swiss start-ups, whether it is customers for their services, mature companies to invest in their technology or partners with complementary expertise. Medtech is also a sector of interest both in terms of the innovation environment and in terms of potential markets (e.g. the “National Health Service”).  And the same is true for Cleantech where the UK lags behind in implementing sustainable technologies.      

Which development stage should start-ups have reached, when they apply for the CTI Market Entry Camp in London?
Start-ups are eligible for this programme when they have been accepted for coaching by CTI. Once they are in the coaching programme, there are no further restrictions in terms of maturity. In fact, we plan to adapt our camp to the company stage so that young start-ups can come for a week or two to validate their market and test their business model while more mature companies can come for additional weeks to get a foothold in the market.    

Are you offering the same services than the other Entry camps?
Where we don’t differ from the other camps is the provision of tailored services. For each stay in the UK, we agree milestones between company, CTI coach and ourselves and we put together a tailored programme of meetings, networking and contacts which should help the company meet those milestones.

But there are also differences to the other camps? What is different and why?
There are three main differences to US camps: the timing, the travel costs and the workspace. In terms of timing, our aim is to provide flexibility because that’s what start-ups need most when they are in a race to hit targets and small teams deal with all aspects of business. We figured that start-ups would ideally want short periods of intense activity abroad that are easily integrated with the main job of running the company’s development at home.  That’s why we chose to offer between one and four individual weeks of “full immersion” in the UK separated by time back in Switzerland. This has another advantage: after each week, we have time to evaluate which contacts and activities have been the most promising and then we can plan the next week based on that – in other words, an “iterative approach” to market entry rather than having to pre-plan several months at once.

This also explains the cost policy. Because travel to London is cheap and quick, it gives a start-up more freedom to design the number and duration of its stays (with our help and that of the CTI coach, of course) and to be in charge of organising their travel accordingly. In the USA or in Asia, this model wouldn’t work but we think it is perfect for London.

And finally: location. In the US camps, companies stay in a swissnex, a very dynamic place to work in the heart of a tech cluster. However, there are no swissnex in Europe so the CTI Market Entry Camp UK is led by the Swiss Embassy instead. We realise that an Embassy is not an ideal environment for a start-up, so we offer our companies a shared workspace in the main tech cluster in London with options to spend time in science parks in Oxford or Cambridge. That way, they will be immersed into the start-up scene and can benefit not only from our pre-arranged meetings but also from the informal contacts with fellow entrepreneurs and experts.           

If ICT and Life Sciences industries are so strong in the UK – doesn’t that mean that no one has waited for the guys from Switzerland? What can Swiss start-ups reasonably expect to achieve with the camp?
That’s right, no one is waiting for the guys from Switzerland and that is exactly the reason why our start-ups will benefit from an Entry Camp. Because the big opportunities in the UK make it worth trying to get a foothold in this very competitive environment for ICT and the other high tech sectors we work in. I see two different objectives for Swiss start-ups: more mature companies can use it to identify and approach customers, simply extending their business practice into a new territory. For early stage start-ups, however, this represents a great opportunity to test and fine tune their product and business plan in a different language, culture and business culture environment to see whether it can go global.  

Is it a good idea to try to contact investors during the camp? Do you have contacts to investors too?
If a company’s priority is to secure finance, absolutely. We have contacts to investors from previous projects for Swiss start-ups and are also expanding these over the coming months. It is not necessarily easier to get funding from a UK investor than from a Swiss one, but exposure to a different set of funders may open new possibilities. In any case, we expect our companies to come into contact with investors through participation in the relevant networks, even if this is not the main purpose of their visit.    

The CTI Market Entry Camp program in UK has just started. Can the first companies apply now or have the first companies already been selected?
Companies who have been accepted for CTI coaching can now apply for the CTI Market Entry Camp UK. We have already received requests from a number of companies but we still have spaces left. The timing of visits can be tailored to individual companies, so I encourage anyone interested to get in touch with me early to find out more about the programme and how it can help them to explore opportunities in the UK.     

Contact: Lutz-Peter Berg, Swiss Embassy London, lutz-peter.berg@eda.admin.ch
Tel. +44 20 7616 6089

More information about CTI Market Entry Camps in general can be found on the CTI Start-up website.