Helping startups succeed: Everything you need to know about The Pitch 2023
The Pitch is one of the UK’s largest startup pitching competitions. Run by the team at Inkwell, the programme strives to support startups in their journey to raising investment and helps our partners build relationships with the UK’s most exciting businesses.
It works too. In recent years we have seen finalists raise millions of pounds in seed rounds following the competition.
With recent winners including Rowdy Kind and Goodloans, The Pitch brings together a variety of exciting startups from across the UK.
“Being part of The Pitch was more than just a challenge, it allowed us to get clearer on our proposition to investors - 90 seconds isn't very long after all! - and gave us a huge amount of confidence about our business.”
“We're so grateful for the experience and the mentoring we've had since the event has been invaluable,” says Kate Tilbury, co-founder of Rowdy Kind and winner of The Pitch 2022.
Kate Tilbury, co-founder of Rowdy Kind
The Pitch 2022 programme included 5k online and in-person event delegates, over 180k video views and more than one million social impressions. For the 2023 programme, we have plans to expand our support services even further.
What’s in the pipeline for The 2023 programme?
Next year, we’re going to be building on our tried and tested programme, which is broken down into four levels:
The six regional finals are held in Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh and London. The Pitch Final takes place in London, and we always secure an exciting venue and well-known judges for this event.
In 2022, the final took place at Google’s office, with judges including well-known entrepreneurs like Pensionbee CEO Romina Savova, ex-Graze CEO Anthony Fletcher and GoHenry COO Louise Hill.
Partners of The Pitch also get involved, with Sage’s Andreas Georgiou and Crowdcube’s Darren Westlake joining the judging panel for the final.
The event was sold out, with 100 people attending in-person and over 500 streaming it online.
The Pitch 2022 campaign had:
Over 5k event attendees
180k video views
1.2 million social impressions
82k website visitors
30k email opens
An example of this is the Side Hustle Final, which was sponsored by Sage and has been watched 4k times.
The programme experienced a ten-fold year-on-year increase in the number of video views. By tapping into live streaming services and building on what we’ve learnt we can open up the competition to a much wider audience and build brand awareness for our partners (download The Pitch 2023 slide deck here).
Also new to the 2023 programme is Seed Stage, a weekly interview series.
Interested in being a partner for The Pitch 2023?
Each year, we invite businesses to be a partner of The Pitch, gaining valuable insight and access to hundreds of startups. In recent years, we’ve seen the likes of Sage, Crowdcube, Microsoft and Fiverr support The Pitch.
The Pitch provides a platform to reach and build meaningful engagement with a new audience of entrepreneurs:
Mass awareness: Introduce your brand to an audience of 68k entrepreneurs throughout the programme.
Brand association and education: Position your brand as a trusted partner through co-branded educational content.
Getting in at the right stage: Use in-person and online events to build relationships with startups on the cusp of scaling.
We work closely with our partners to create educational content that resonates with startup founders, helping brands drive awareness and build trust with the founders behind these businesses.
"The Pitch creates consistently slick content,” said Sage Campaign Marketer Nicola White. “That's really helpful because it makes the process so straightforward for us."
If you’re interested in a partnership, please contact our founder Chris at chris@inkwellagency.co.uk to see if there are any remaining spots to join us for the 2023 programme. Alternatively, book in a call with Dan here.
