Slaughter and May unveils third Fast Forward cohort
Six innovative businesses – including two with a sustainability and greentech focus - to join newly extended technology entrepreneurs programme
Slaughter and May, the leading international law firm, today announces it has selected a third cohort of six further businesses to join its technology entrepreneurs programme, Fast Forward.
The successful programme, launched in October 2016, is one of the original schemes of its type in the legal sector, giving young companies access to the first class legal services that they may need but can struggle to find. Seventeen innovative tech-driven businesses have joined the Fast Forward programme, benefitting from £30,000 of value each from Slaughter and May in the form of legal advice and other value-add services.
Having initially focused on the fintech sector, for this third cohort the firm wanted to open up Fast Forward to enable a broader range of emerging technology companies to benefit.
The six businesses which will make up the third cohort operate in a diverse range of business areas; they are:
- bio-bean (https://www.bio-bean.com/) - an award-winning green technology company, the first in the world to recycle used coffee grounds on an industrial scale for the manufacture of biofuels and biochemicals.
- Bundle (https://www.bundle.org/) – building an email collaboration tool to enable organisations to capture and manage chains of email exchange with clients in a way that will keep project teams synchronised, make inboxes quieter, give the right people access to the right conversations, but without changing existing email workflows.
- Coconut (https://getcoconut.com/) - a fast-growing current account product that takes the pain out of accounting and tax, designed specifically for freelancers, the self-employed people and small business owners.
- CreditMint (https://www.creditmint.io/) - building a blockchain infrastructure to facilitate origination and trading of digitised financial assets — starting with syndicated and bilateral loans. It is the first implementation of the company's AZTEC Protocol (https://www.aztecprotocol.com/), a privacy technology on the Ethereum blockchain.
- Magway (https://www.magway.com/) - a dynamic company creating a revolutionary e-commerce delivery system using magnetic propulsion that improves air quality and reduces road haulage congestion by transporting parcels to urban areas through utility style pipes.
- Tully (https://www.tully.co.uk/) – a social impact fintech that helps its users to manage and control their debts with effective planning tools, money coaching and support.
“We’ve been supporting companies at the coal face of technology entrepreneurship for many years now, and that exposure has really intensified over the life of Fast Forward,” said Ben Kingsley, partner at Slaughter and May. “We’ve seen a significant increase in demand for the legal support our programme provides from a broad church of tech-driven businesses, so for this latest round we extended the programme beyond its fintech origins, albeit fintech remains an important part of the firm’s tech strategy.”
Rob Sumroy, partner at Slaughter and May, said: “I was excited at how many high quality applications we received from impressive businesses wanting to be part of the new cohort. It was a difficult exercise for the team here to narrow the field and ultimately select the six we have chosen for this cohort. The fact that we have selected a diverse range of ventures, from London and other regions, is testament to the entrepreneurial talent that we have always known exists throughout the UK."