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The Team

The Accelerator Academy has been developed by White Horse Capital LLP – a tech, media and telecoms investment and advisory business.

The Accelerator Academy initiative has been driven by Ian Merricks for White Horse Capital.

Ian is deeply involved in the UK start-up community and early stage investment space, as an investor, advisor, operator.

With 16 years experience within the Tech, Media & Telecoms market, Ian is a serial entrepreneur. Ian has launched a music PR agency, 2 record labels, 16 radio stations, a network of best-selling city guide books and websites, a youth promotions agency, an academic contract publishing business, a B2B media planning and buying agency, a tech investment advisory business and now the Accelerator Academy.

Along the way he has also worked with the boards of FTSE100 companies like EMAP, as well as IPC & The Wireless Group, as a commercial and corporate troubleshooter.

He is now a Partner in London’s leading TMT (Tech Media Telecoms) small cap investment brokerage; White Horse Capital, where he has been involved in raising over £45m of equity and debt in corporate deals, and has advised on £52m of M&A transactions last year alone.

Since launching the Accelerator programme, Ian has spoken at numerous conferences including MOBIP, TechWorld and for the British Business Angel Association, as well as directly to Government / BIS (receiving endorsement for the Academy from Mark Prisk MP the Business Minister), UKTI, City Hall / the Mayor of London (who directly supports the Academy) and presented to Antonio Tajani, the EU Commissioner for Industry and Enterprise about the importance of business acceleration programmes.

Ian has judged entrepreneur competitions for UCL, Bright Ideas Awards and London Business Angels. He has evaluated entrepreneur applications for both the Entrepreneur First programme and the New Entrepreneurs Foundation and in November 2011 helped to launch the UK Technology Funding Gap White Paper for GLA / Barclays Bank..

At a regulatory level Ian has successfully lobbied HM Treasury for changes to the tax regime for seed investment, also inputting into the March 2012 Budget on behalf of Entrepreneurs through Start Up Britain, and also for the Financial Services Industry through TheCityUK.

Ian’s current focus is on uniting best-of-breed early stage support programmes, through the Accelerator Network, and linking this to a £35m Accelerator Fund / Syndicate, to provide end-to-end support for high growth businesses, from Seed to Series A, from Education to Exit.