Funding competition announced for Year 4 of the Cyber Security Academic Startup Accelerator Programme (CyberASAP)

Posted on: 27/01/2020

Academics in a UK institution can apply for a share of £800,000 to join CyberASAP. Competition opens on 10 February and closes at noon on 6th March 20

After three successful years, CyberASAP will be running again this year and academic teams with ideas for a product/service in the cyber security space are invited to apply for funding when the competition opens on 10 February. The programme, funded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in collaboration with Innovate UK and KTN, helps academics in UK universities commercialise their cyber security ideas.

 

CyberASAP has two phases and culminates in a Demo Day where teams who have progressed to Phase 2 have the opportunity to pitch their products to investors and industrialists (interested in attending? Click here)

 

Throughout the programme, teams are given intensive support from industry experts and the specialist CyberASAP team at KTN in order to develop their ideas with a view to taking their product/service to market and fully exploiting its commercial opportunities.

 

Key points for 2020/21 Applications:

  • Any idea relating to cyber security and any UK university/academic institution are in scope

  • Teams must have an interest in commercialising the idea

  • The Innovate UK competition details will likely be available from 27 January 2020

  • Programme will start 1st April 2020

  • Up to 30 projects could be accepted onto the programme

This competition provides funding of up to £32,000 to academic teams of up to develop a value proposition and carry out market validation.

Further funding is expected to be available after Phase 1, via an invitation-only competition, to develop a proof of concept.

 

APPLY: To find out more about Phase 1 and to apply, visit the competition page here. The competition opens on 10th February, closing at noon on 6th March 2020.

 

WEBINAR: There will be a webinar for interested parties on Tuesday 11th February 2020, 12:00 – 13:30: click here to register for a free place.

 

SOCIAL: Follow @CyberASAP on Twitter and LinkedIn for live updates.

 

The value of the programme to academic teams is reflected in comments from some of this year’s cohort: Dr Ivo Sluganovic from Oxford University commented that “CyberASAP has been extremely valuable in communicating the importance of finding the right product/market fit, encouraging our team to take the time and energy for market validation, and in providing us with valuable feedback to carve out the unique selling points for our project”. And Dr Alexios Mylonas from Bournemouth University said that CyberASAP was, quite simply, “the most eye-opening experience’.

 

CyberASAP has been running for three years, helping academic teams navigate the challenging journey from academic idea to commercial roll-out, and you can find out more about the progress of some of the previous year’s teams here.

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