The Rain Clouds
Rain Gods need a place to live and these are The Rain Clouds, co-working spaces dedicated to specific market verticals for companies that are serious about what they are trying to achieve.
The first of The Rain Clouds is in Westminster, where The Rain Gods is also based. This 100-seat facility is located on the boundary of Victoria and the Westminster government precinct. It is dedicated to the emerging area of GovTech and CivTech, supporting companies, charities, think tanks and existing micro businesses that are bringing innovation and digital disruption to government, public services and democracy.
Loughborough University
Loughborough University is ranked as the UK’s number 1 University for Student Experience and as one of the top-10 research universities in the country in the most recent Research Assessment Exercise. As part of an ambitious strategy to both grow and raise standards, it opened a London campus in 2015.
The Rain Gods were engaged for their knowledge of the university-sme-government eco-system in London and asked to help build relationships that would benefit students, researchers and the corporate interests of the new activity. We lead on the institutions participation in the global Spin Accelerator for Sports Tech companies.
Nesta
Nesta is the UK’s Innovation Foundation.
Working with members of Nesta’s Challenge Prize Centre, The Rain Gods is managing the development and deployment of a technology sandbox to help the UK’s largest banks to supply data to third parties to develop comparison and pricing of banking products for the SME market. The work was commissioned by the Competition and Markets Authority.
Sirius Programme
Sirius is the UK’s national programme to attract graduate entrepreneurs to set up new businesses in the country. It is backed by a series of leading public and private companies and is delivered in partnership with the Department for International Trade. The accelerator programme runs twice per year and offers training, mentoring, finance and visa support to successful applicants.
The London Entrepreneurs’ Challenge
The London Entrepreneurs’ Challenge (E-Challenge) is the largest and longest running student business plan competition and workshop programme in the UK, having been established in 2001. It has welcomed students from UCL, London Business School, SOAS, Birkbeck College, the University of Westminster and Loughborough University London.
The E-Challenge is currently undergoing a makeover and will be back in 2020.