For Cyber Entrepreneurs

Solve tomorrow's problems, today

You may have the next big cyber security solution but have no idea where to start commercialising it - that's where our venture building programme comes in. Along with industry, we set challenges that your ideas could solve.

What are you waiting for?

Submit your idea to a challenge

What is the Venture Building Programme?

We bring the ideas people with cyber domain expertise, together with entrepreneurs with commercial know-how, to work together, to take an idea to a fully-fledged commercial venture within 12 months.

Build your Team

You may have a great idea, but lack the expertise to take it to market. We find the best talent, and build a team around you. Including commercial expertise, product development, or coding skills. That way, there is a strong balance from a tech, cyber and commercial skillset to help create a viable company and attract investment.

Receive a Monthly Stipend

You will all receive a £1500 monthly stipend and access to physical space – allowing you and your team to immerse yourselves in the entrepreneurial journey without the financial constraints. Together you will take the spark of a concept to a fully-fledged commercial venture within 12 months, that will grow and scale across the world.

Develop your Solution

Our world class testbeds representative of smart cities, manufacturing systems, connected vehicles and large scale virtualised IT networks support product development and validation. Through our links with Airbus, Thales and CGI, we help you test the market demand for your solution and take it to market, increasing your chances of success.

Turn your vision in to a reality. What are you waiting for?
Apply here through our open challenges

So how does it work?

Periodically, we will release calls for interested parties to respond to challenges. We advertise our challenges on our website and social media.

: Everyone is welcome to bring forward their ideas for how they might address the challenge posed. You could be a student, academic, or indeed anyone with a big ideas and the energy to turn it into a commercial venture.
: Critically, we are looking for responses that tackle the challenge, are novel and innovative and have a clear route to market.
: You will be partnered with a team recruited by the Alacrity Foundation which might include people with skills such as software engineering, product design, commercial expertise, and business development
: These other team members will become your co-founders and, together, you will work to form a business over the 12 months of the programme. You will all receive a £1500 monthly stipend while on the programme.

As an investor we are not just looking for potential big ideas, we’re looking for ideas with clear and considerable commercial potential. We seek a well-balanced team and this is not straightforward to achieve with domain expertise alone.

The Cyber Innovation Hub blends domain expertise in cyber security with a commercial team who share equity equally as co-founders, and are supported by a tried and tested venture building programme which is a very exciting to us as it boosts the likelihood that we’ll see more of what we’re looking to invest in.

Carl Griffiths Fund Manager at Development Bank Wales

What do you get from us:

A market-led challenge that offers the opportunity to develop a product that has relevance in the market.
A £1500 a month stipend to assist with your living costs whilst you are on the programme.
Being part of a multi-disciplinary team that will work with you to develop your ideas into a viable business.
A tried and tested programme that will guide you through ideation, product development and testing, marketing and revenue generation.
Access to our test-bed facilities to help test and validate your ideas and to physical space at TramShed Tech.
Access to research expertise at Cardiff University, industry expertise through our partners and the incubator experience of the Alacrity Foundation.

What do we require from you?

Respond to one of our challenges! If you’ve got a good idea that will address one of the cyber problems that we’ve identified, then we’d love to hear from you.
Licence any background intellectual property (IP) that you’ll be bringing with you. This is so that you and your other team members can use that background IP to develop your idea into a business.
Any IP that is developed during the programme will be held by the Hub on behalf of the team.
The incubation programme is 12 months in duration and you will be expected to work daily in the Newport/Cardiff region while you are on the programme.
If successful, after the 12-month programme, the IP will be returned to the new company in exchange for an equity stake in the company to recognise the support given by the Hub.
The remainder of the equity will be split amongst the founders of the company.

I dared myself to cover a 4000 miles distance from India to the United Kingdom last year with the hope of expanding my understanding of business. Last month, I gained this brilliant opportunity to be a part of the entrepreneurship programme with Cyber Innovation Hub to support my dream of becoming a business leader in cyber security. Having no prior knowledge or expertise in business, this programme has allowed me to quickly learn more about identifying customer needs in a competitive cyber security market, and how to position new solutions to create business opportunities.