News 18

Communal space at the Akcela Ventures Incubator, at FUEL Studios.

EXPECT A WARM WELCOME AT NEW INCUBATOR

Start-ups and scale-ups in Norwich can look forward to a warm welcome at a new city incubator.

The Akcela Incubator aims to help businesses achieve their full potential. While the East of England has the third highest business population in the UK, it has the third lowest levels of business incubators and accelerators.

Until Akcela opened its doors in September, Norwich, a city with the 13th highest level of tech investment in the UK, didn’t have a single incubator offering space and support for startup and scale up businesses.

Akcela’s management team and partners are on hand to support young growing businesses through the challenges of commercialisation and scaling.

Akcela describe themselves as an industry agnostic incubator, supporting businesses of all types to achieve their “full potential”. The team has experience managing projects for growth around the world, working within start-ups, scale ups, and managing VC investment and exit.

Managing director, James Adams, explained: “We wanted to create an incubator that was about the business and the founders, not about a certain specialism and looking for the next unicorn. Full potential is about businesses that can have a positive impact on the founder, the staff they employ, the local community and the sector they operate within.”

Applications for incubated tenants are being accepted now. Companies will receive free office space in the city centre for the duration, as well as support from the directors while working together. Akcela operate on a shareholding model, taking a small shareholding in the company, which dilutes along with incoming investment.

We wanted to create an incubator that was about the business and the founders, not about a certain specialism and looking for the next unicorn.

AKCELA INCUBATOR

akcela.co.uk

ACTION ON LABOUR SHORTAGES IS VITAL TO PROTECT EAST ANGLIA’S RECOVERY PROSPECTS

Time is running out to consolidate a sustainable and solid economic recovery in the region. The Government needs to act now to head off the rapidly growing skills crisis.

We’ve all seen them; the gaps on the supermarket shelves, the handwritten ‘help wanted’ signs in the windows, the headlines about McDonald’s running out of milkshakes and Wetherspoon reducing its range of beers. The so-called ‘pingdemic’ may be behind us, but East Anglia’s labour supply problems show little sign of abating – and could bite for the long term unless we take action now to remedy them.

Multiple coalescing factors have created this situation. The tail end of COVID – and the high case numbers still being reported – are restricting the availability of some staff. More than one and a half million workers remain on furlough, too. And many overseas workers left the UK during the pandemic – heavily impacting sectors like hospitality, logistics and food processing – while new immigration rules make replacing them more complex.

For businesses which have endured 18 months of disruption, uncertainty and inhibited demand, this is the last thing they need. The summer reopening was meant to be their opportunity to begin trading their way to recovery – not the onset of a new crisis which would once again undermine their shortterm viability.

It is not an exaggeration to say these shortages are biting right across the region’s economy. The CBI has heard from companies actively