Birmingham based accelerator begins global search for top entrepreneurs

Birmingham based accelerator programme, FORWARD, is calling for applications from the world’s best upcoming entrepreneurs as it prepares to begin its next 6 month cohort. Having helped to support over 3 previous cohorts, Birmingham Enterprise Community, who run the programme, once more are prepared to support participating businesses to scale their businesses globally.

FORWARD seeks to support exciting & innovative high-growth startups & scaleups from anywhere in the world who are working to build international businesses. Over 6 months, the programme provides a comprehensive package of support that focuses on giving participating businesses everything they need to continue & accelerate their growth. The support has been designed to focus on 6 key areas which are seen as critical to enable successful growth of scaling ventures which includes access to international markets, funding strategy, strategic partnerships, structure & operations, growth strategies and capacity building.

Past cohorts of FORWARD have included entrepreneurs from multiple counties including the UK, USA, Italy, Nigeria, India, Costa Rica & Venezuela to name a few examples. Collectively, programme alumni have become some of the most exciting businesses to watch in their respective industries and have gone on to secure 6 figure investments and partnerships with global brands including O2 Telefonica, Nestle, Virgin and Disney.

Potential businesses can be from any country in the world and from any sector or industry. These businesses must be at a high-growth/scaling stage and can demonstrate significant traction to date. With a clear focus on quality over quantity, there are only 8 places available for the programme, meaning participating businesses get to spend plenty of time working with the award-winning Birmingham Enterprise Community who were also recently responsible for running the Accelerate UK programme on behalf of the UK Government’s Department for International Trade.

One such participant of FORWARD is the world’s safest e-bike manufacturer, Calamus. Originally from India, the company relocated their international headquarters to Birmingham in the UK with the support of the FORWARD Accelerator Programme after successfully securing pre-orders of around half a million pounds. Speaking in a recent interview, Calamus CEO & Co-Founder Nilesh Bothra said:

“I think there has been immense progress [during FORWARD] and when you ask for help you get it with a lot of passion. The BEC guys put in a lot of passion towards helping entrepreneurs which I’ve experienced myself. All of these people from BEC – Davies, Daniel, Omran, Alex – are amazing and FORWARD is an amazing programme.”

Speaking about the launch of the latest cohort of the FORWARD Accelerator Programme, BEC’s CEO Daniel Evans, comments:

“It is hard to believe how quickly we’ve reached cohort 4 of FORWARD already with the programme starting just 2 years ago. Over that time we’ve rapidly built a global community of partners and collaborators that allows us to provide world-class support to those taking part in FORWARD. We are immensely proud of what the programme’s alumni have gone on to achieve which I think is a real testament to the power of the support offered by the accelerator.”

“The programme has one simple aim. We want to support those who are working to build global businesses that could change the world around us. Wherever they are from, whoever they are – if they have what it takes then FORWARD is here to support them”.

For more information on the FORWARD accelerator programme, visit:
https://www.birminghamenterprisecommunity.co.uk/forward-accelerator-programme/