Unilever Ventures Joins Collider12 Programme, Launches Investment Competition
Collider12 today annouced that Unilever Ventures (UV) has joined Collider12 as a participating investor. Collider12 is the “B2Brand” accelerator founded by Ingenious Media and Pembridge backed with £500k of loan finance from Creative England through the government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF). UV have also confirmed that they have set aside a further £100K which they hope to invest in one of the Collider12 participant companies at the end of the initial 13- week programme, which would value the investee company at a minimum of £1M (post money). The Competition, referred to as “The Unilever Challenge” will be administered by Collider12 and UV. It is open to any startup company which creates “B2Brand” services or products.
To enter, startups need to submit their Business Plans into the Collider12 entry process on www.collider12.com and be accepted onto the Collider12 Programme. Entries close on December 31st 2012.
Entries for The Unilever Challenge will be judged by UV at the end of the first phase of the Collider12 Programme in May 2013. The key criteria for UV will be to find a start-up that has the potential to be a game-changer for key Unilever brands in the way that these brands communicate and interact with their customers via digital channels.
John Coombs, Managing Director of Unilever Ventures, said: “There is a revolution in how people are relating to brands and what brands are for their customers, but the biggest revolution is in the types of services that customers can engage with using mobile and social techniques. The UK has always been at the forefront of media and marketing communications and we are seeing a lot of innovative startups at the moment. We are looking to work closely with a number of these companies to help them develop their capabilities to provide services to big brands like those of Unilever, not just in the UK but around the world.”
