Kick off Climb26 the right way and fuel up with coffee, croissants and good company ahead of the main event.

We're bringing together a small group of founders to connect over honest conversations about growth, the challenges that come with it, and what's actually happening in their businesses right now. 

Reconnect with some familiar faces or hit the main event with some new friends.

Places are limited so please register quickly to avoid disappointment.

Good intentions are not enough. This session explores how organisations can measure social mobility credibly, communicate progress responsibly and avoid overclaiming impact. 

As social mobility becomes a more visible part of business strategy, the challenge is no longer simply saying the right things. It is about being able to show meaningful progress, measure outcomes credibly and communicate impact in a way that stands up to scrutiny. 

This session will explore how organisations can approach social mobility measurement with greater rigour, what evidence really matters, and how to avoid vague claims that weaken trust. 

It will focus on practical ways to assess progress, build credibility and communicate responsibly without overstating results. 

Who should attend

This session is for impact leads, founders, communications leaders, people leaders and anyone responsible for shaping, measuring or communicating social mobility activity within an organisation. 

It will be especially relevant for businesses that want to strengthen the credibility of their social impact work and avoid the risks of weak or superficial reporting. 

Why it’s relevant

Expectations around social impact are rising, and organisations are under growing pressure to show that their commitments are real, measurable and meaningful. 

In the context of social mobility, that can be difficult, particularly when outcomes are long-term, multi-layered and influenced by factors beyond a single intervention. 

This session is relevant because credibility matters. Weak measurement and overclaiming can quickly undermine trust, while thoughtful evidence and responsible communication can strengthen both impact and reputation. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer approach to measuring social mobility outcomes in a more credible and practical way, including what to prioritise, what good evidence looks like and where organisations often go wrong. 

The session will also offer useful guardrails for communicating impact responsibly, helping leaders avoid superficial claims and build a stronger, more trusted narrative around the work they are doing. 

Idea to Visual Prototype in 60 Minutes Perfect for AI Build Beginners

What it's about: 

A hands-on beginner session where you'll use Google's AI ecosystem to turn a great idea into a beautiful, clickable app prototype - no design or coding skills needed. Using the NoCodeLab PRD Agent, Google Stitch, and Google AI Studio, you'll go from an idea to an interactive demo in just 60 minutes.

Who should attend: 

Anyone with a digital idea and zero technical experience. Business owners, entrepreneurs, consultants, and creatives who want to build without code.

Why you should attend: 

AI has removed the barrier between having an idea and seeing it come to life. This session shows you exactly how.

What you'll leave with: 

A clickable visual prototype of your own idea, built live in the session.

Early-stage success depends on learning fast. This session explores how founders test assumptions, validate customer demand and build evidence of real product-market pull before overcommitting time and resources. 

In the early stages of building a business, the biggest risk is not moving too slowly on delivery, but moving too quickly without real evidence that the problem, customer and proposition are right. 

This session will focus on how founders move from assumption to validation, testing whether the problem is meaningful, whether the buyer is clear, and whether customers are genuinely willing to pay. 

It will explore how early-stage teams can learn quickly, avoid false positives and build evidence that supports stronger product, commercial and fundraising decisions. 

Who should attend

This session is for early-stage founders, startup teams and product leads who are shaping a new proposition, refining their customer focus or trying to build stronger conviction around what the market actually wants. 

It will be particularly relevant for businesses at the point where they need to move beyond instinct and start building evidence. 

Why it’s relevant

At startup stage, speed of learning is often the biggest competitive advantage. Founders who can test assumptions quickly, understand customer behaviour early and gather meaningful evidence are far better placed to build something the market genuinely wants. 

Too many businesses waste time and resource developing products before they have properly validated the problem, the buyer or the value proposition. 

This session is relevant because getting to product-market pull faster can reduce risk, sharpen focus and create a much stronger foundation for growth. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer understanding of what useful validation really looks like, and how to distinguish between encouraging feedback and genuine market evidence. 

The session will cover practical ways to test assumptions, design the right early experiments and evaluate whether there is real demand, buyer interest and willingness to pay. 

You will also gain a more structured validation plan that can help turn early ideas into stronger commercial decisions. 

Businesses rarely grow well in isolation. This session explores the value of community, connection and belonging, and how strong networks support founders, leaders, growth businesses and wider ecosystems. 

This session brings together business leaders who have built highly valuable communities around founders, leaders and growing businesses. 

The conversation will explore why community matters, how being part of something bigger can accelerate progress, and the role strong networks play in supporting individual businesses, leadership and the wider ecosystem. 

It will also reflect the importance of inclusive communities, including the role of women in business networks and the value of diversity in shaping stronger, more connected growth. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, business leaders, ecosystem builders, investors, partners and anyone interested in growth through relationships, networks and collaboration. 

It will be particularly relevant to those looking to expand their reach, strengthen their support network, build partnerships, or create more inclusive and connected business environments. 

Why it’s relevant

Too many businesses try to grow in isolation. In practice, progress is often faster and more sustainable when people are connected to the right communities, conversations and opportunities. 

Strong business communities can open doors, create trust, share knowledge and generate momentum that would be difficult to achieve alone. 

They also play an important role in improving representation, creating space for underrepresented voices and making ecosystems stronger, fairer and more effective. 

What you’ll take away

You will hear practical insight into how successful business communities are built, what makes people want to engage, and how communities create value for members, organisations and the wider economy. 

The discussion will also explore the importance of inclusion, the role of women in business communities, and how diverse networks can strengthen innovation, leadership and growth. 

A panel discussion and Q&A on how to prepare your company for early-stage investment and beyond, from legal, corporate finance, tax, founder, and investor perspectives.

Who should attend

Founders and management teams either looking for investment or already on the investment journey.

Why it’s relevant

Securing investment is a competitive endeavour, and being “good enough” may not be sufficient without adequate preparation. It will assist founders and management teams in understanding what investors actually expect, reducing the risk of delays, failed rounds or poor deal terms.

What you’ll take away

Gain practical, real-world insight into what investors look for and how to position your business to secure funding. Develop an understanding of the legal, financial, and tax foundations that make a company “investment-ready,” and hear directly from founders and investors about common pitfalls and how to avoid them. Learn how to structure your business and shape your story to maximise value and credibility at every stage. Leave with clear, actionable steps to strengthen your readiness for early-stage investment and beyond.

Investor Speed Networking is one of the most valuable parts of Climb26 - designed to give founders rare, direct access to active investors in a highly structured format.

These sessions bring together a curated group of founders and investors for a series of focused, one-to-one conversations. It is not general networking - it is time set aside to get feedback, test your proposition, and build meaningful relationships with people who are actively investing.

Important: This is not included in your standard Climb26 ticket.

To take part, you must book a separate add-on ticket in advance.

You can find and book your place here: Investor Speed Networking Tickets

Spaces are limited and sessions are curated to maximise value, so we strongly recommend securing your place early.

If you are looking for investment, feedback, or simply sharper insight from people who understand the funding landscape, this is one of the highest-value opportunities across the entire festival.

Early traction is not the same as repeatable revenue. This session explores how startups sharpen their ICP, test routes to market and build a pricing approach that supports sustainable growth. 

One of the biggest challenges for early-stage businesses is turning early activity into revenue that can be repeated and built on. It is not enough to have interest in the product or a handful of early customers. 

Founders need to understand who really buys, why they buy, what channels consistently reach them and how pricing supports both conversion and value. 

This session will explore how startups find their first repeatable growth loop by sharpening their ideal customer profile, testing the right routes to market and building a pricing approach that works in practice rather than only on paper. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders and first sales or marketing hires who are working out how to turn traction into a more structured commercial model. 

It will be especially relevant for businesses still refining their customer focus, experimenting with channels or trying to find a pricing approach that supports sustainable growth. 

Why it’s relevant

Many early-stage businesses stay busy but struggle to build real momentum because they are trying to reach too many types of customer, spreading effort across the wrong channels or pricing without enough clarity or confidence. 

Without focus in these areas, activity can look promising without translating into repeatable revenue. 

This session is relevant because getting the right combination of customer, channel and pricing is often what turns an early proposition into a commercially viable business. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a practical framework for identifying and refining your ideal customer profile, testing which channels are most likely to drive effective acquisition, and iterating pricing in a way that reflects both customer willingness to pay and the value you create. 

The session will help founders think more clearly about the building blocks of a repeatable revenue engine and how to strengthen them in the early stages of growth. 

Who should attend

Why it’s relevant

What you’ll take away

Ambition drives founders, but it is rarely examined properly. This session explores how ambition shapes decisions, sacrifices and success, and what becomes possible when that force is consciously directed. 

This is a conversation with Hugo Brooks, serial entrepreneur and author of Ambition: Redefining Success for a Restless Age. 

Hugo makes the case that ambition, the desire to make tomorrow better than today, is the most powerful and least understood force in most founders’ lives. Unexamined, it drives you forward on autopilot. Consciously directed, it becomes one of the most dynamic assets you can own. 

This is a conversation about the force underneath the business, not just the business itself. It will explore what ambition really is, how it shapes founder behaviour, and why understanding it can be as important as any tactic, framework or growth strategy. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders and entrepreneurs at any stage who have achieved something significant and are asking what comes next. 

It will be especially relevant for those who sense that the drive that got them here may now be taking them somewhere they have not consciously chosen. 

Why it’s relevant

Most founder content focuses on tactics, funding and scale. This conversation goes one layer deeper, to the force that drives every decision, every sacrifice and every ambition. 

Many successful founders spend years being driven by ambition without ever stopping to examine what it is pointing towards. That can create progress, but it can also lead to drift, restlessness or success that does not feel as meaningful as expected. 

This session is relevant because it asks a question many founders have not been asked directly: what is your ambition really serving? 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a genuinely different way of thinking about what drives you as a founder, and why examining that force matters more than any single business framework. 

The session will help you reflect on the role ambition plays in your decisions, identity and future direction. 

You will also gain insight into what becomes possible when ambition is consciously directed rather than simply pursued. 

In 2017, Volker spoke about AI and the future of work before the current wave of AI broke into the mainstream. Now he returns to explore what comes next: context, physical AI and how real-world intelligence may reshape business, work and society. 

In 2017, Volker gave a TEDx Manchester talk entitled AI and the Future of Work, three months before the publication of the transformer paper Attention Is All You Need, which helped unlock the present wave of AI. 

Over the past two years, many of the ideas that once felt distant have started to play out in the mainstream. Generative AI is now part of everyday business conversation, reshaping how people think about work, productivity, creativity, decision-making and competitive advantage. 

This session, Context Is All You Need, looks beyond the current wave. It will explore how AI may move from text, prompts and digital tools into systems that better understand context, environment and the physical world. 

The talk will examine the emerging field sometimes referred to as physical AI, where real-world data, embodied systems, sensors, robotics and intelligent infrastructure start to bring AI closer to the environments in which people, businesses and machines actually operate. 

It will also ask what might come after that, and what leaders should be thinking about now as AI moves from digital capability to more context-aware, real-world intelligence. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, CEOs, investors, technologists, innovation leaders and anyone trying to understand where AI may go next. 

It will be especially relevant for people looking beyond today’s AI tools and wanting a clearer view of how future developments could affect business models, work, productivity, automation, infrastructure and competitive advantage. 

It will also appeal to leaders in sectors where AI may increasingly interact with the physical world, including manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, transport, energy, construction, robotics, smart infrastructure and advanced technology. 

Why it’s relevant

The current AI wave has already changed how businesses think about productivity, knowledge work and digital capability. But the next shift may be even more significant. 

As AI becomes more context-aware and starts to connect more deeply with the physical world, its impact could extend far beyond chat interfaces, content generation and software workflows. 

For leaders, the challenge is to understand not only what AI can do today, but what it may make possible next. Businesses that can anticipate this shift will be better placed to adapt, invest, experiment and build advantage as the technology evolves. 

This session is relevant because it connects the present AI moment to the next frontier, helping attendees think beyond current applications and start considering how context, embodiment and real-world intelligence could shape the future. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer view of what may come after the current wave of AI, and why context could become one of the most important ideas in the next stage of development. 

The session will provide insight into physical AI, how real-world data and environments may become part of intelligent systems, and what this could mean for businesses, sectors and society. 

You will also gain a more strategic perspective on how leaders should think about AI beyond today’s tools, including the opportunities, risks and questions that may define the next phase of adoption. 

From Brilliant Science to Big Business brings together pioneering life sciences founders who have successfully transformed cutting-edge research into thriving companies. In this engaging panel, speakers will share their journeys from discovery to commercialisation, offering real-world insights into scaling innovation, navigating challenges, and unlocking market potential. Whether you're an academic, entrepreneur, or investor, this session will provide valuable perspectives on turning breakthrough science into impactful, high-growth venture

Busk Your Business turns pitching into a live festival moment. Instead of formal applications or closed judging rooms, founders can step up, take the mic and pitch their business on the spot to whoever is in the audience at that moment. 

It’s open, fast-paced and unpredictable - designed to create energy, visibility and real engagement in the middle of the event. A judging panel tracks pitches across the festival and selects a winner at the end, but the real value is in the experience itself. 

For founders, it’s a chance to test your message live, build confidence and get your business in front of an active audience. For everyone watching, it’s one of the most dynamic ways to discover new ideas and connect with the people behind them.

This focused roundtable, hosted by Wendy Popplewell, Director of Core Services at Barnsley Council brings together leaders from across the tech, investment, and policy landscape to explore how we accelerate the progression of women across the full tech and funding pipeline. The roundtable will examine the opportunities that supporting women in tech presents and explore how best to reduce the persistent barriers.

TECH SY’s Women in Tech and Investment Taskforce focuses on three strands of work - The FoundHERy (Business support programme), support for women working in tech, and a TECH SY X Lifted Ventures Angel Academy (supporting more women to be angel investors in the region). The roundtable discussion will draw on these three areas of work, regional insight and national perspectives to examine access to finance, representation in leadership, and the role of ecosystems in supporting female founders and investors. 

Participants will share practical experiences, identify systemic challenges, and explore how public and private sector partners can take collective action. A particular focus will be placed on how places like South Yorkshire can lead by example. 

The roundtable will feed into ongoing programme development and future activity, including the Northern Tech Summit and wider regional efforts to build a more inclusive, connected and investment-ready tech ecosystem.

The TECH SY Women in Tech and Investment Taskforce is funded through the Barnsley Council Tech Town status awarded by the Department of Science and Technology, as well as South Yorkshire's Mayoral Combined Authority and the British Businesses Bank.

Scaling brings complexity. This session explores what starts to break inside growing businesses, from decision-making and accountability to delivery and alignment, and what leaders can do to fix it fast. 

Scaling can look like momentum from the outside, but inside the business it often creates a new level of strain. Systems that worked at an earlier stage begin to creak, communication becomes harder, accountability becomes blurred, and decision-making can slow just when speed matters most. 

This session will explore the points at which scaleups commonly start to lose pace and control. Rather than focusing on theory, the discussion will draw on real operational, commercial and organisational challenges, and the practical interventions strong operators use to address them. 

Who should attend

This session is designed for scaleup founders, CEOs and senior operators navigating the realities of growth. It will be particularly relevant for COOs, CFOs, CROs and other leaders responsible for delivery, structure, performance and commercial execution as the business becomes larger, more complex and harder to manage through instinct alone. 

Why it matters

Many businesses reach a stage where growth itself becomes the source of new problems. Teams expand, reporting lines multiply, customer expectations rise, and processes that once felt agile start to create friction. These challenges are common, predictable and often fixable, but only if leaders recognise them early and know where to intervene. For scaleups trying to maintain momentum, this is often the point where leadership quality and operating discipline matter most. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer understanding of the most common breakpoints that emerge as businesses scale, from decision-making and accountability to forecasting, delivery and cross-functional alignment. 

The session will provide a practical diagnostic lens to help leaders identify where pressure is building in their own business, along with a focused set of interventions that can be applied over the next quarter to restore pace, clarity and control. 

A candid, operator-led session on the predictable breakpoints that emerge as businesses scale, and the practical fixes that help leadership teams restore pace, clarity and control. 

Different capital sources play different roles. This session explores how founders can use grants, angels and institutional investment in the right sequence to de-risk growth, build evidence and prepare for stronger future rounds. 

For early-stage businesses and spinouts, access to capital is rarely about one funding source alone. The real challenge is knowing how to combine grants, angel investment and institutional capital in a way that supports progress without narrowing future options. 

This session will explore how founders think strategically about funding sequence, using non-dilutive capital to build evidence and momentum, while preparing for equity investment at the right time and on stronger terms. 

It will look at how different forms of capital can work together, where founders can get stuck, and how to avoid creating a strategic dead-end through poor sequencing or unrealistic assumptions. 

Who should attend

This session is for spinouts and early-stage founders who are navigating the funding journey from idea to growth. 

It will be especially relevant for businesses considering grant support, angel funding or their first institutional round, and for founders trying to understand how different sources of capital fit together over time. 

Why it’s relevant

Funding sequence can have a major impact on the future of a business. Used well, grants can help de-risk innovation, build evidence and strengthen readiness for equity. 

Used poorly, they can delay commercial focus, distort priorities or leave businesses struggling to bridge to the next stage of capital. The same is true of angel and institutional investment. 

This session is relevant because founders often focus on accessing capital in the moment, rather than thinking carefully about the order, purpose and implications of different funding routes. Getting that sequence right can improve flexibility, strengthen investor confidence and lead to better long-term outcomes. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer roadmap for how grants, angel investment and institutional capital can be sequenced to support growth more effectively. 

The session will highlight common traps, including timing issues, dependency on non-dilutive funding, weak transition planning and misalignment between funding type and business stage. 

It will also give founders a more practical framework for thinking about the right capital at the right time, and how to build towards future rounds without limiting their strategic options. 

AI is moving quickly, but many businesses are still unsure how to turn the opportunity into practical value. This session explores where to start, how to identify useful AI applications, how to manage risk and how to embed AI into real business processes. 

AI is becoming a practical business tool that can improve productivity, decision-making, customer service, marketing, sales, operations and product development. 

But many founders and business leaders are still asking the same questions: where do we start, what should we use it for, how do we manage the risks, and how do we move from experimenting with tools to creating real business value? 

This session will explore how businesses can implement AI in a practical, responsible and commercially useful way. It will look at how leaders identify the right use cases, prepare their teams, choose tools, protect data, manage change and measure impact. 

The focus will not be on AI theory or technical jargon. It will be about how founders and business leaders can make AI work inside real businesses, with real people, real processes and real commercial priorities. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders who want to understand how AI can support growth, productivity and competitiveness, as well as CEOs, MDs and business owners considering how to introduce AI into their organisation. 

It will be particularly relevant for scaleup leaders looking to improve sales, marketing, operations, finance, customer service or product development using AI, and for senior managers responsible for digital transformation, operations, technology, people or strategy. 

It will also be useful for business leaders who have experimented with AI tools but have not yet embedded them properly, advisers, investors and ecosystem partners supporting companies that need to become more AI-ready, and non-technical leaders who want a clear, practical route into AI implementation. 

Why it’s relevant

AI is already changing how businesses operate, compete and grow. For founders and business leaders, the question is no longer whether AI matters. The question is how to use it well. 

Many companies are experimenting with AI, but relatively few have turned experimentation into structured implementation. Some are using tools informally without clear policies, training or measurement. Others are waiting because they feel overwhelmed by the pace of change, uncertain about risks, or unsure where AI will make the biggest difference. 

That creates both a risk and an opportunity. Businesses that learn how to implement AI effectively can reduce manual work, improve decision-making, speed up customer response, strengthen sales and marketing, support better internal processes and free people to focus on higher-value work. 

Businesses that do not engage may find themselves falling behind competitors who are faster, leaner and better informed. 

This session is relevant because it focuses on the practical leadership challenge: how to move from AI curiosity to AI capability. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer understanding of where AI can create value in a growing business, and a practical way to identify good AI use cases. 

The session will provide insight into how to move beyond individual tool use into business-wide implementation, while also covering the risks around data, accuracy, security, compliance and staff adoption. 

You will gain ideas for using AI across sales, marketing, operations, customer service, finance and product development, along with guidance on how to prepare teams for AI-enabled ways of working. 

The session will also help you think more clearly about what should be automated, what should be augmented, and what should remain human-led. 

You will leave with practical examples of how businesses are already using AI to improve performance, a starting point for building an AI implementation plan, and greater confidence to take the next step without being overwhelmed by the technology. 

Wellbeing is not separate from performance. This session explores mental health, resilience and recovery through honest lived experience, elite performance insight and the realities of leading under pressure. Attendees will gain practical lessons for founders, leaders and teams navigating demanding environments.

This conversation brings together Andrew Jenkins, Stephanie Millward MBE and Ellie MacDonald—three speakers with powerful, distinct and complementary lived experiences of resilience, adversity and high performance.

Andrew Jenkins is a leadership and resilience specialist who draws on his personal experience of mental health challenges to break stigma and encourage more open, supportive conversations in workplaces.

Stephanie Millward MBE is a Paralympic swimming champion and mindset coach whose journey includes being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 17 and going on to win multiple Paralympic medals through determination, discipline and mental strength.

Ellie MacDonald is an award‑winning PR founder and mental health advocate who has openly shared her experiences of burnout, anxiety and the pressures of entrepreneurship, offering a relatable and practical perspective on sustaining wellbeing while building a business.

Together, they will explore how people manage pressure, recover from difficulty, build confidence and keep moving forward when life or work becomes overwhelming. The session will also examine what leaders and organisations can do to create environments where people feel safe to speak openly, ask for help and look after their mental wellbeing before issues reach a crisis point.

Who Should Attend

This session is for founders, CEOs, senior leaders, people leaders, managers, investors and anyone responsible for building healthier, more resilient teams.

It is especially relevant for those leading through pressure, change or uncertainty, and for organisations that want to take wellbeing seriously—beyond policies, benefits or surface‑level initiatives.

Why It’s Relevant

Mental health and wellbeing directly influence confidence, decision‑making, relationships, energy, performance and retention.

In high‑pressure environments, people often push themselves until they reach their breaking point. Leaders may feel they must appear strong at all times, while teams can struggle quietly with stress, uncertainty, burnout or personal challenges.

This session brings mental health into the leadership and business conversation in a grounded, human and practical way. It reframes wellbeing as a core component of sustainable performance, trust and resilience.

What You’ll Take Away

You will hear honest insight into resilience, recovery, mindset and mental wellbeing from three speakers with diverse lived experiences and performance backgrounds.

You will gain practical lessons on how individuals can recognise pressure earlier, develop healthier coping strategies and build confidence through difficult periods.

You will also leave with a clearer understanding of how leaders can create more open cultures, reduce stigma, support people more effectively and embed wellbeing into the everyday fabric of the organisation—rather than addressing it only when problems arise.

Investor Speed Networking is one of the most valuable parts of Climb26 - designed to give founders rare, direct access to active investors in a highly structured format.

These sessions bring together a curated group of founders and investors for a series of focused, one-to-one conversations. It is not general networking - it is time set aside to get feedback, test your proposition, and build meaningful relationships with people who are actively investing.

Important: This is not included in your standard Climb26 ticket.

To take part, you must book a separate add-on ticket in advance.

You can find and book your place here: Investor Speed Networking Tickets

Spaces are limited and sessions are curated to maximise value, so we strongly recommend securing your place early.

If you are looking for investment, feedback, or simply sharper insight from people who understand the funding landscape, this is one of the highest-value opportunities across the entire festival.

About: 

Participants bring a real business challenge and use LEGO® Serious Play® techniques to reframe and explore it from new angles. Through building and storytelling, solutions emerge that traditional brainstorming rarely surfaces.

Who should attend: 

Entrepreneurs and SME leaders who feel stuck on a specific challenge - commercial, operational, or people-related. Or those business leaders who are curious about how LSP can help their teams to think more creatively, solve challenges, think bigger and communicate more effectively. 

Why it's relevant:

When we build, we think differently. The tactile, playful nature of LEGO® bypasses the inner critic and unlocks creative thinking that typical problem-solving sessions can sometimes suppress. 

What you'll get from it:

New angles on a live business challenge. A repeatable creative problem-solving technique you can use with your own team. The experience of unlocking ideas you didn't know you had. Oh… and a bunch of LEGO® to take away with you. 

About

Most teams don’t struggle because of lack of talent, they struggle because too much still flows through the founder or leader. This interactive session focuses on the core leadership habits that turn teams from task executors into confident decision-makers and problem solvers.

We’ll explore how to set clear expectations, use coaching to unlock ownership, give feedback that actually drives change, and handle underperformance without creating dependency or avoidance. Along the way, we’ll surface the subtle, often unintentional habits even experienced leaders don’t realise they’ve built, that keep teams reliant. The focus is practical, honest, and immediately applicable.

Who should attend

Founders, managers, and leaders at any stage who want to build teams they can trust to think, decide, and deliver, without constant oversight.

Why it’s relevant

If decisions keep coming back to you, your business won’t scale. Strong leadership isn’t about control-it’s about creating the conditions where people take ownership, move faster, and perform at their best.

What you’ll get

Simple, practical tools and routines you can use straight away to build clarity, accountability, and confidence in your team, so they step up, take ownership, and free you up to focus on growth.

Trust is a performance driver. This session explores how leaders create clarity around roles, expectations and decision-making so teams can move quickly without losing alignment. 

As businesses grow, trust becomes one of the most important enablers of speed, alignment and performance. Without it, decision-making slows down, communication becomes less effective and teams can start to operate with uncertainty rather than confidence. 

This session will explore how founders and leaders build trust at pace by creating clarity around roles, expectations and decision-making behaviours. 

It will look at how strong leadership teams reduce friction, improve accountability and create an environment where people can move quickly without losing alignment. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, executives and team leaders responsible for building effective teams and leading through growth. 

It will be especially relevant for leaders working in fast-moving businesses where pace, complexity and change make trust, clarity and good judgement critical to execution. 

Why it’s relevant

High-trust leadership is not just about culture; it has a direct impact on how well a business performs. When roles are unclear, expectations are inconsistent or decision rights are poorly defined, businesses lose time, create friction and put unnecessary pressure on teams. 

By contrast, strong trust and clarity help organisations move faster, make better decisions and retain good people. 

This session is relevant because many of the problems that emerge as businesses grow are not caused by lack of effort, but by lack of confidence, alignment and clarity in how leadership works. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a practical playbook for building higher-trust leadership, including how to think about decision rights, communication cadence and accountability across teams. 

The session will provide useful frameworks for clarifying responsibilities, improving the quality of leadership interaction and creating conditions where people can operate with more confidence, ownership and speed. 

The US is a major opportunity for consumer brands, but it is not an easy market to enter. This session explores what B2C and D2C businesses need to get right before scaling into the US. 

For many consumer brands, the US represents a huge growth opportunity, but it is also a market where expansion can become expensive, complex and difficult to get right. 

This session with Walmart Marketplace and Infinity Blue will explore what B2C and D2C businesses need to understand before entering the US, from market dynamics and customer expectations to route to market, operational readiness and the realities of scaling successfully. 

It will also be relevant for the tech and solution providers helping brands improve performance, reach customers more effectively and grow with greater confidence. 

Who should attend

This session is for B2C and D2C founders, brand leaders, commercial and growth teams, ecommerce businesses and companies actively considering US expansion. 

It will also be highly relevant for technology providers, platforms and specialist partners whose products and services help consumer brands improve acquisition, conversion, fulfilment, customer experience and overall commercial performance. 

Why it’s relevant

The US is one of the most attractive growth markets in the world for ambitious consumer brands, but success is far from guaranteed. 

Businesses need to think carefully about timing, positioning, customer behaviour, channels, fulfilment, partnerships and scale. 

This session is relevant because it will offer a realistic view of what brands need to get right before making the move, while also highlighting the wider ecosystem of technology and support that can help them perform more effectively in-market. 

What you’ll take away

You will gain practical insight into the opportunities and challenges of entering the US market, including what brands should consider before they expand, where common mistakes are made and what stronger preparation looks like. 

You will also hear perspectives relevant to the wider consumer growth ecosystem, including the role of technology, data and specialist support in helping brands deliver better results at scale. 

AI has created opportunity, excitement and noise in the fundraising market. This session explores what investors are really looking for, how founders can stand out, and what credible investment readiness looks like in the age of AI. 

AI is changing the fundraising landscape for founders and growth businesses. As more companies position themselves around AI, and as investors become both more interested and more discerning, the bar is shifting. 

This session will explore what investors are really looking for, how founders should think about positioning, traction and credibility, and what it now takes to stand out in a market where almost every pitch references AI in some way. 

It will focus on how to communicate AI clearly, avoid overclaiming, demonstrate real commercial potential and show why the business is defensible, investable and capable of creating lasting value. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, CEOs and senior leaders in early-stage and scaling businesses who are raising investment now or expect to in the future. 

It will be particularly relevant for businesses building AI-led products or services, as well as companies using AI as part of a broader commercial proposition and wanting to understand how that will be viewed by investors. 

Why it’s relevant

AI has changed both the opportunities and the noise in the investment market. More businesses are presenting themselves as AI-enabled, but investors are becoming more disciplined about what is real, what is defensible and what creates genuine value. 

Founders need to understand how to talk about AI with clarity, how to avoid overclaiming, and how to demonstrate commercial potential in a more crowded and more scrutinised market. 

This session is relevant because it will help businesses understand how fundraising expectations are evolving and what credible investment readiness looks like in this environment. 

What you’ll take away

You will gain practical insight into how investors are evaluating AI-related opportunities, what makes a business compelling in the current market, and how founders should position their story, traction and ambition. 

The session will also explore common mistakes, how to communicate AI credibly, and what businesses need to do to raise money more effectively in a fast-moving investment landscape. 

A fireside chat with an Olympian exploring what it takes to perform under pressure, prepare for major moments, recover from setbacks and sustain excellence over time, with lessons for founders, leaders and growing teams. 

This fireside chat will explore the mindset, preparation and discipline behind Olympic-level performance. 

The conversation will look at what it takes to compete at the highest level, how elite performers manage pressure, how they prepare for defining moments, and how they respond when things do not go to plan. 

It will also explore the people and systems behind performance, from coaching and feedback to team culture, resilience, recovery and the ability to keep improving over time. 

While rooted in the experience of an Olympian, the session will draw out practical lessons for founders, leaders and businesses: how to stay focused, make better decisions under pressure, build resilience, maintain standards and perform when the stakes are high. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, entrepreneurs, senior leaders, investors, team leaders and anyone interested in performance, resilience and leadership. 

It will be especially relevant for people leading through pressure, building high-performing teams, navigating uncertainty or trying to sustain ambition over a long and demanding journey. 

Why it’s relevant

Olympic performance is built over years, but often tested in moments. That combination of long-term preparation and high-pressure execution has strong relevance for business leaders. 

Founders and leaders also have to perform under pressure, stay disciplined through uncertainty, recover from setbacks and make decisions when the outcome matters. 

This session is relevant because it brings a high-performance perspective into the business context, helping attendees think differently about preparation, mindset, resilience and the conditions that allow people and teams to perform at their best. 

What you’ll take away

You will hear practical insight into how elite performers prepare, focus, manage pressure and recover from setbacks. 

The conversation will offer lessons on discipline, motivation, resilience, teamwork and sustaining performance over time. 

You will leave with a stronger understanding of how Olympic-level habits and thinking can be applied to leadership, culture and day-to-day business performance  

About: 

A hands-on working session for twelve scaling founders, hosted by Daniella Wainwright. Founders self-score their business against three drivers - the numbers buyers and backers trust, the operating value drivers that move a multiple, and the founder's highest-value work. 

Who should attend: 

Just twelve spaces available for scaling SME founders who are looking for practical tips to take back to their businesses and use to start moving it forward.

Why it matters: 

Most leadership content gives you frameworks but not the time, focus or peers to apply them. This is a rare working session where you score your business honestly, pressure-test your priorities, and walk out with a one-page plan you'll actually use to make meaningful progress.

What they will get:

Using Mentimeter and a printed Value Multiplier Scorecard, founders identify the three highest-leverage moves they can make in the next 90 days and pressure-test their plans with peers in the room. 

The North has talent.

The North has businesses.

The North has universities, colleges, funders, combined authorities and employers.

Yet employers still struggle to recruit. Young people still struggle to access opportunities they didn't know existed. Founders still struggle to build the right networks and connections.

At the same time, significant investment continues to flow into employability, entrepreneurship, social mobility and future talent initiatives.

So what's getting in the way?

This wouldn't be a panel. It would be an invite-only roundtable bringing together business leaders, funders, combined authorities, education providers and organisations working directly with future talent.

The objective would be to explore a simple question:

If we've got the talent, the investment and the intent, why do the same challenges keep showing up?

Early growth often depends on the founder. This session explores how businesses turn sales momentum into a structured, repeatable revenue engine that can scale. 

In the early stages of a business, growth often depends on the founder’s energy, network and personal ability to win customers. That can work well at first, but it rarely scales. 

As a business grows, revenue needs to become less dependent on individual effort and more driven by a clear commercial model, disciplined pipeline management, stronger handovers and a more joined-up approach across sales, marketing and operations. 

This session will explore how businesses make that transition, and what it takes to build a revenue engine that is structured, repeatable and capable of supporting sustained growth. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, CROs, VP Sales leaders, RevOps professionals and marketing leaders responsible for driving commercial performance. 

It will be especially relevant for businesses that have grown through founder-led selling and are now trying to build stronger processes, clearer accountability and a more scalable route to revenue. 

Why it’s relevant

One of the biggest challenges for growing businesses is moving from opportunistic sales success to consistent commercial performance. Founder-led selling can generate early traction, but it often depends too heavily on personal relationships, instinct and informal ways of working. 

That becomes harder to sustain as teams grow, expectations rise and investors look for evidence of repeatability. Businesses that can professionalise revenue, with a clear ideal customer profile, better pipeline discipline and stronger alignment across teams, are far better placed to scale successfully and attract both capital and talent. 

What you’ll take away

You will gain practical insight into how to move from heroic selling to a more predictable revenue model. 

The session will cover the foundations of commercial repeatability, including defining the right ideal customer profile, building stronger pipeline discipline, improving enablement and creating better handovers between functions. 

You will leave with a clearer roadmap for turning early sales momentum into a more reliable and scalable revenue engine. 

The creative industries are a major UK strength, but many creative businesses still struggle to access the right capital. This session explores what investors need to understand, what founders need to evidence, and how to build greater confidence between capital and creativity. 

The UK’s creative industries are one of the country’s most distinctive economic strengths, spanning film, TV, games, music, fashion, design, advertising, immersive media, content, digital creativity and creative technology. 

They generate valuable intellectual property, global cultural influence, export potential, skilled employment and new forms of technology-enabled growth. Yet many creative businesses still struggle to access the right kind of investment. 

Some investors see the sector as difficult to understand, too project-based, too reliant on talent, or harder to scale than software or deep tech. At the same time, many creative founders are not always clear on what investors need to see: repeatable revenue, strong margins, credible IP, commercial discipline, scalable models, management capability and a clear route to growth. 

This session will bring together Creative UK, investors and creative founders to explore how the investment gap can be closed. It will look at why the creative industries represent a serious investment opportunity, what investors need to understand about the sector, and what creative founders can do to become more investable. 

The discussion will focus on practical ways to build confidence between capital and creativity, helping more creative businesses access the funding they need to grow. 

Who should attend

This session is for creative founders looking to raise investment or prepare their business for future funding, as well as investors who want to understand the commercial opportunity in the creative industries. 

It will be relevant for angels, VCs, family offices, funds, banks and alternative finance providers interested in growth sectors beyond traditional tech. 

It will also be valuable for founders and leaders in film, TV, games, music, fashion, content, design, marketing, media, immersive, digital and createch businesses, particularly those looking to move from project income to more scalable revenue models. 

The session will also be useful for ecosystem builders, combined authorities, local authorities, universities and advisers supporting creative clusters, studios, agencies, cultural organisations and creative entrepreneurs. 

Why it’s relevant

The creative industries are economically significant, but the investment conversation around the sector is often too narrow. 

Creative businesses can be rich in intellectual property, brand value, audience insight, talent, content, community and global market potential, but those assets are not always understood or valued properly by mainstream investors. 

There is also a growing opportunity around createch, where creativity meets advanced technology. As creative businesses become more digital, data-led and technology-enabled, the potential for scalable models, new markets and investable growth becomes stronger. 

At the same time, creative excellence alone is not enough. Investors need to see how the business makes money, where growth will come from, how IP is protected, whether revenue is repeatable, and whether the team can scale. 

This session is relevant because it tackles both sides of the challenge. For investors, it will demystify the creative industries and show where investable opportunities exist. For founders, it will explain what funders look for and how to build a more credible, commercially robust investment proposition. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer understanding of why the creative industries represent a serious investment opportunity, and how investors assess creative businesses in practice. 

The session will provide insight into what makes a creative business investable, including how founders can present revenue, IP, audiences, growth potential and risk more effectively. 

You will also hear where creative businesses can scale beyond project-by-project income, what types of capital may be available, and where misunderstandings often arise between founders and funders. 

The session will help attendees understand how to build greater confidence between capital and creativity, and how creative talent, IP and audience value can be turned into more sustainable, investable businesses. 

Looking for your next great investment opportunity? Then Join us for an exclusive session that dives deep into the future of life sciences. This is your chance to explore groundbreaking innovations and investment opportunities that are set to reshape the industry. Speakers will unveil cutting-edge developments in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare technology. Discover how these innovations are addressing pressing global health challenges and driving sustainable growth. Whether you're an experienced investor or new to the life science sector, this session will provide a showcase of exciting innovation in the sector.

Investor Speed Networking is one of the most valuable parts of Climb26 - designed to give founders rare, direct access to active investors in a highly structured format.

These sessions bring together a curated group of founders and investors for a series of focused, one-to-one conversations. It is not general networking - it is time set aside to get feedback, test your proposition, and build meaningful relationships with people who are actively investing.

Important: This is not included in your standard Climb26 ticket.

To take part, you must book a separate add-on ticket in advance.

You can find and book your place here: Investor Speed Networking Tickets

Spaces are limited and sessions are curated to maximise value, so we strongly recommend securing your place early.

If you are looking for investment, feedback, or simply sharper insight from people who understand the funding landscape, this is one of the highest-value opportunities across the entire festival.

About the Session
• This session will walk you through how to protect, value, and unlock the financial potential of your intellectual property (“IP”). It will focus on how IP can be used as a core driver of business value and an asset to secure funding.

What We Will Cover
• Understanding Intellectual Property
• What IP is, the different types available, and why protecting it is essential to building and preserving business value
• Valuing IP in a Commercial Context
• How IP is assessed in practice, and how a structured valuation approach can strengthen your position with investors and lenders
• Using IP to Access Funding
• How businesses can use their IP to support growth and investment plans

Why It’s Relevant
• Many businesses underestimate the value of their intellectual property or find it difficult to use it when seeking finance. As lending and investment approaches continue to evolve, being able to present IP as a credible, measurable asset is becoming increasingly important. This session provides a clearer understanding of how IP can support funding conversations and growth

What You’ll Take Away
• A clear understanding of how IP contributes to overall business value
• Practical insight into how IP is assessed and valued commercially
• Knowledge of how to use IP to access both equity and debt funding
• Awareness of how well-protected and actively managed IP can strengthen competitive advantage
• Insight into innovative funding approaches

Who Should Attend
• Founders, entrepreneurs, and scale-up businesses
• SMEs with established or developing intellectual property
• Business owners looking to raise funding for growth
• Innovation-led companies (technology, life sciences, creative sectors, etc.)
• Advisors supporting clients with strategy, funding, or IP

What it's about

AI won't eat your dinner. But the business down the road will eat your breakfast, lunch and dinner while you're still deciding what to do next.

This isn't about typing faster into Copilot or buying Claude Max. It's how you add capacity, capability and speed in the next 90 days. Creating the time for you and your team to do what you're great at.

Who should attend

You're already using AI. The problem is it's only drafting your emails and tidying your notes. This is for Founders and Directors who want to move past that, to where AI adds real capacity, but don't know how to get there.

Why they should attend

The gap is opening now.

In every market a few businesses are already using AI to do more with the same team. They're not replacing people. They're pulling ahead. The risk isn't AI taking your job. It's a competitor building a lead while you sit on the fence.

Forty five minutes that could save you a year of guessing.

What you'll takeaway

• A bullet proof evaluation of your AI strategy
• A methodology for knowing exactly where to start
• Where you can get leverage tomorrow, in 30 days and in 90 days
• Rock solid examples of what other companies are doing to spark ideas

Drawing on lessons from global sport, media and startup leadership, Sharon Fuller explores how brands cut through, build audiences and create something people genuinely care about. 

Sharon Fuller has travelled the world working across different countries, sports and audiences, with experience spanning major global organisations and startup leadership. 

This session will draw on lessons from her career across the BBC, Red Bull, the NBA and her own startup, Original Version, to explore how brands connect with people, stand out in crowded markets and build something people genuinely care about. 

It will also look at why the sports industry needs disruption, where change has happened across Sharon’s career, and how leaders can prioritise the work that creates the greatest impact. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, marketers, brand leaders, commercial teams, media professionals and anyone responsible for growing an audience, customer base or following. 

It will be relevant to businesses of all sizes looking to strengthen engagement, build visibility and create stronger market impact. 

Why it’s relevant

In crowded markets, attention is hard to earn and even harder to sustain. Great brands are not built simply by being visible; they are built by understanding audiences, creating relevance and giving people a reason to care. 

Sport offers powerful lessons because it sits at the intersection of identity, emotion, community, content, performance and commercial growth. 

This session is relevant because those lessons apply well beyond sport, particularly for businesses trying to build stronger audience relationships, improve engagement and create more distinctive brands. 

What you’ll take away

You will gain practical insight into how audiences are built, why some brands and organisations cut through more effectively than others, and what it takes to create impact in highly competitive environments. 

You will also hear behind-the-scenes lessons from a remarkable career spanning global sport, media and startup leadership, with takeaways that apply well beyond the sports world. 

AI is not just a marketing tool or productivity experiment. This session explores how one scaleup is using AI across the business, sharing lessons learned, results so far and what it takes to embed AI into every team. 

This session will provide a practical look at how AI is being used inside a scaling business to improve how teams work, make decisions and deliver growth. 

Rather than focusing on AI as a standalone tool, the talk will explore why AI now needs to be considered across every function of a scaleup, from demand generation and sales to operations, delivery, customer success and internal productivity. 

The session will share lessons learned so far, what has worked, what has been harder than expected and what results have started to emerge. It will also look at the leadership and operational choices required to move AI from experimentation into everyday business execution. 

The focus will be on practical implementation rather than theory, with insight into how AI can support scale, improve efficiency and help teams deliver more with greater consistency. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, CEOs, COOs, investors, senior operators and functional leaders in scaleup businesses. 

It will be especially relevant for leaders who are trying to understand how AI can improve performance across the whole company, not just within isolated teams or pilot projects. 

It will also be useful for investors who want to understand how AI adoption is changing operating models, productivity, team structure and competitive advantage within growth businesses. 

Why it’s relevant

Scaleups are under constant pressure to grow faster, operate more efficiently and improve execution without adding unnecessary complexity. 

AI offers a major opportunity to support that challenge, but many businesses are still using it in fragmented ways, often limited to individual tools, experiments or single departments. 

This session is relevant because it looks at what happens when AI is treated as a business-wide capability. Used well, it can support demand generation, improve sales processes, strengthen delivery, reduce manual work, speed up decision-making and help teams focus on higher-value activity. 

For scaleups and investors, the key question is no longer whether AI is interesting. It is whether AI is making the business more productive, more scalable and more competitive. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer understanding of how AI can be applied across different functions of a scaleup, from demand generation through to delivery. 

The session will provide practical lessons from implementation, including where AI is creating value, what barriers need to be managed and what leaders should consider before rolling it out more widely. 

You will also gain insight into the results achieved so far, how AI adoption can affect team performance and operating rhythm, and what investors should look for when assessing whether a scaleup is using AI in a meaningful and scalable way. 

About

An interactive workshop with Hugo Brooks, serial entrepreneur and author of Ambition: Redefining Success for a Restless Age. 

Most founders are extraordinarily good at executing on their ambition. Very few have ever examined what it actually is, where it came from, and whether it's taking them somewhere they genuinely want to go. Through honest conversation and guided reflection, this session creates the space to ask the questions that the daily pressure of building a business rarely allows.

Who should attend

Founders and senior leaders who are building hard and moving fast, but who occasionally wonder whether the destination matches the drive. Particularly valuable for founders at an inflexion point - scaling, exiting, or simply asking whether this is still the right mountain.

Why it's relevant

Unexamined ambition is the most common cause of founder burnout, wrong-direction scaling and the quiet dissatisfaction that successful people rarely admit to. The founders who take time to understand what's really driving them tend to build differently: with more clarity, more resilience, and a clearer sense of what success actually looks like for them.

What you'll get

Not tools or techniques but something rarer. A genuine shift in how you think about what's driving you, a clearer sense of whether your ambition is taking you somewhere you've consciously chosen, and an insight into what becomes possible when it does.

Fluent in Business? Clueless in Culture?

About: 

You've built a brilliant thriving business, you know your numbers, you can pitch in your sleep and you're ready to scale. But the moment you step into a room with an international client, partner or investor you notice something shifts. You can't quite put your finger on why the deal failed. 

Cultural intelligence (CQ) is the way we do things around here. Most UK founders have the ambition to go global. Very few have the framework to pull it off. This is that framework.

It's not about whether to shake hands or go in for the awkward British almost-hug. It's about understanding how trust is built, how decisions are made and what's actually being said when nobody's saying a word.

Who should attend:

• Founders and CEOs actively pursuing or planning international expansion
• Sales and business development leaders opening new markets

• Leaders building diverse high performing teams in the UK

• Investors and advisors working with internationally ambitious founders

Why its relevant:

The UK is one of the most internationally connected business ecosystems in the world.  However, small missteps cost British businesses billions every year in lost contracts and failed partnerships.

In a post-pandemic, post-Brexit landscape where relationships and trust are harder to build and easier to lose, cultural intelligence is your commercial advantage.

Whether you're selling into the US, pitching to Middle Eastern investors or simply building your team in the UK, the ability to communicate, negotiate and lead is one of the highest-return investments you can make in your business.

What you will get from it: 

In this practical workshop, you'll learn to read rooms you've never been in, lead people who think differently to you and win business from cultures that play by entirely different rules. You'll get our business growth cheat sheet most relevant to UK businesses scaling globally. 

The FIFA World Cup is the biggest football tournament in the world, bringing together national teams from across the globe to compete to be crowned world champions. Held every four years, it is widely regarded as the most prestigious event in the sport, watched by billions of people worldwide.

At Climb26, you do not just hear about big moments - you get to experience them live.

On 1 July at 17:00, we will be screening a World Cup match on our outdoor large screen, creating a shared viewing experience right in the heart of the festival. Expect the atmosphere of a fan zone: people gathered together, reacting in the moment, and enjoying the game as part of the wider event.

We will have a bar and food available throughout, making it easy to grab a drink, connect with others, and settle in for the match. Whether you are a football fan or just want to soak up the energy, it is a chance to take a break from the agenda, enjoy a global moment, and be part of something collective.

​For one night only, Rare Founders is bringing our legendary London pitching and networking event to Climb26. We’re packing up the energy, the founders, the investors, the chaos, and yes… the water guns, and bringing it north.

​One minute. One mic. A room full of people who could change everything.

​Every 20–30 minutes, we randomly select 5–6 fundraising founders to step up and pitch. You get 60 seconds to sell your vision, test your story, and get in front of a room full of builders, backers, connectors, and people who actually matter.

​⏱️ Go over time? 💦 You meet the water guns. We keep it fast, fun, and effective.

​Whether you pitch or watch, this is the room where opportunities start, intros happen, and deals begin.

​Whether you’re fundraising, looking to invest, building something exciting, or simply want to meet ambitious people without awkward networking vibes, you’re welcome.

​Limited space. First-come, first-served, first drink on us. 

​Agenda

• ​6.00 pm - 7.00 pm: Arrival & Networking

• ​7.00 pm - 7.40 pm: Welcome

• ​7.40 pm - 8.10 pm: Networking

• ​8.10 pm - 8.30 pm: Open Mic Pitching (Round 1)

• ​8.30 pm - 9.00 pm: Networking

• ​9.00 pm - 9.20 pm: Open Mic Pitching (Round 2)

• ​9.20 pm - 10.00 pm: Final Networking

​👉 Spots are limited - sign up now.

​​By joining the event, you’re allowing us to capture and share some of the great moments! Photos and videos taken may be used later to showcase our community and for marketing, helping us make future events even better.​​​​

​​Rare Founders is a founder-led community bringing together early-stage founders, operators, and investors through thoughtfully curated events across London. From open mics and intimate roundtables to large-scale Demo Days, our focus is on meaningful connections, practical insight, and creating spaces that feel welcoming, inclusive, and genuinely useful.

​​If you’d like to stay in the loop, you can also sign up to our weekly newsletter for handpicked startup events, opportunities, and updates for founders and investors across the ecosystem.

​​See more details here.

​💥 Get better connected with Sophy

​​Meet Sophy - your networking companion designed to make every connection count. Built for founders, investors, and operators, Sophy helps you see who’s in the room, add notes to your contacts, set follow-ups, and instantly search your entire network - so no valuable connection ever slips through the cracks. Join the waitlist now to be one of the first to benefit from it: GetsophySoPhy — Never Lose a Contact Again

​​​​What to sponsor the event and get exposure with hundreds of businesses? Please email [email protected]

​​​A Huge Thanks To Our Sponsors & Partners!

​ClimbGroup

​Climb26 is the UK’s Festival of Business Growth, taking over Leeds on 1–2 July with founders, investors, and operators all under one roof. Very much our kind of people at Rare Founders, same wavelength, same energy, so you already know it’s going to be two days of meeting seriously extraordinary humans.

​We’ll be there too, hosting our Open Mic on day one, alongside investor speed networking and plenty of ways to get in the room with the right people.

​If you’re up for the two-day adventure, come join us up north; we’ve even secured hotel discounts for our community.

​Find tickets and more info here

​Safety Partner

​​​​Safespace Plus is helping us to foster a safe and inclusive environment at our events. Check out our Code of Conduct so you are aware of what kind of behaviour is not allowed at our events.

​​Venue Partner

​Hosted at The Canary is Leeds’ go-to spot for private hire - whether it’s a party, meeting, celebration, or workshop, they’ve got you covered. With waterside views, flexible spaces, and curated packages (think bespoke quizzes and top-tier entertainment), every event is anything but ordinary.

The VIP Drinks Reception is one of the most exclusive experiences at Climb26  - a space designed for the people shaping what happens next.

Away from the pace of the main festival, this is where conversations become more intentional. It brings together a curated mix of founders, investors, speakers and senior operators in a setting designed for quality over volume. Less noise, more signal.

This is where introductions turn into meaningful discussions. Where ideas are challenged, opportunities are explored, and relationships begin to move beyond surface-level networking. With a concentration of decision-makers and active investors in the room, it is a rare chance to connect in a way that is difficult to replicate elsewhere in the event.

There is a different energy here - more focused, more open, and more reflective of the level at which many of these conversations operate. If you are in the room, you are there for a reason.

Access & Entry

• Your VIP access can be collected on arrival at New Dock Hall (VIP Stand)
• On-the-day upgrades will be available at £200 per person (subject to availability)
• Security will be manning the entrance - a valid VIP pass is required before entry will be granted

Access is deliberately limited to maintain the quality of the room and the conversations within it. Be sure to collect your pass early to avoid delays.

If you have access, use it well - this is one of the moments in the Climb experience where being in the right room, at the right time, can genuinely change the trajectory of a conversation.

The ClimbAwards are not just another awards ceremony - they are a moment to recognise the people, companies and ideas genuinely shaping the future of business growth.

Set within a more intimate and highly curated environment, the evening brings together a select group of founders, investors, partners and industry leaders to celebrate real progress, real impact, and the individuals behind it.

This is not about surface-level recognition. It is about acknowledging the stories, decisions and execution that drive meaningful outcomes. The people in the room are not just attendees - they are the ones building, backing and scaling what comes next.

There is a distinct energy to the ClimbAwards. More intentional, more considered, and more reflective of the level at which these conversations and achievements sit. It is a chance to step slightly outside the pace of the festival and recognise what has been built - while surrounded by others doing the same.

Moments like this are rare. A room of this calibre, focused on celebrating and connecting at this level, does not happen by accident.

Access & Entry

• Strictly invite-only - access is limited to those who have been formally invited
• Entry will be managed on the door, and confirmation or credentials may be required

This is one of the most exclusive parts of Climb26. If you have been invited, you are part of a very small group for a reason. Make the most of it.

Join an energising morning yoga practice and allow yourself to be guided into the day ahead.

Expect to find a real a balance between finding strength and softness, an energising practice that supports you in finding the confidence within, to take it as far as you need to at each moment throughout the class.

Through a balance of strong poses, breathwork and moments to find some softness, expect an energising and mindful flow, allowing the Yoga to go to work. Empowering the class to choose how far they get to go, everything Bryony offers is a suggestion and puts the power back onto the Yogi. Respecting your energy levels and where your body wants to take the practice, whether that’s taking a slower flow or nudging yourself to the edge of your comfort zone. Plenty of options for all levels.

Register for this session

Big night at Climb? We’ve got you covered.

Before day two kicks off, join PXN and friends for a relaxed founders and investors breakfast. No panels, no awkward networking. Just good coffee, breakfast sandwiches and honest conversations with the people building and backing high growth businesses across the North.

This is designed to be an informal space to connect with founders, investors and ecosystem leaders before the conference gets underway again.

Alongside breakfast, the PXN team will host a short, no fluff session: “What VCs Won’t Tell You”. Practical insights and the realities of scaling that rarely make it into founder playbooks. Expect the things you can’t Google: fundraising myths, investor dynamics, common mistakes and what actually matters when building a venture backed business.

We’ll also be giving founders the chance to record a 60 second pitch video about their business, which will be shared across the Climb UK channels. A simple opportunity to showcase what you’re building to the wider ecosystem.

Whether you’re raising, investing, scaling or simply curious, come grab a coffee, meet other founders, and start day two properly.

🥪 Breakfast sandwiches

☕ Coffee

🤝 Founders, investors and ecosystem friends

🎤 “What VCs Won’t Tell You” from PXN

📹 60 second founder videos shared across Climb channels

Places are limited, so please register early to avoid missing out.

Description

This is your chance to ask the questions most founders and leaders usually keep to themselves.

Join Daniel Glazer, London Office Managing Partner and US Expansion Lead at Silicon Valley-headquartered Wilson Sonsini, for a completely open, no-holds-barred facilitated Q&A discussion. He’ll take you from fundraising realities and term sheet traps to scaling challenges, exits, governance, and the legal grey areas no one talks about—nothing is off the table.

No polished panels. No rehearsed answers. Just honest, practical insight from the people who see behind the scenes of some of the world’s most ambitious companies.

Bring your toughest questions but be ready to listen and learn what really happens as businesses grow, raise, and evolve.

Who Should Attend

• Founders and scaleup leaders navigating growth or investment
• Operators and leadership teams making high-stakes decisions
• Investors and advisors wanting a candid view of common pitfalls
• Anyone who prefers real talk over generic advice

What You’ll Get

• Straight answers to the questions you don’t usually get to ask
• Insight into real-world deals, challenges, and mistakes
• Greater confidence around legal, commercial, and strategic decisions
• A clearer understanding of what good (and bad) looks like as you scale
• Practical takeaways you can apply immediately to your business

The journey from seed to scale is rarely smooth. This session shares hard-won lessons from founders and active investors on what changes, what breaks and what leaders need to get right as businesses grow. 

The journey from seed stage to scale is rarely smooth, and the most important lessons are often learned in the moments when the business has to change how it operates, leads and grows. 

This session brings together founders who have been through that journey and active investors who have seen it many times from the other side of the table. 

Together, they will explore the transition points that matter most as companies scale, from early traction and team building to commercial discipline, leadership evolution and fundraising readiness. 

The focus will be on practical insight rather than hindsight, and on the decisions that make the biggest difference as complexity increases. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders and senior operators who are building, scaling or supporting growth-stage businesses. 

It will be especially relevant for leaders navigating the shift from early momentum to a more mature operating model, and for those who want to learn from people who have faced the realities of scaling first-hand. 

Why it’s relevant

Scaling a business is not simply about doing more of what worked early on. Each stage of growth brings new demands, new risks and new decisions, and founders often discover that what got them this far will not be enough to get them further. 

Learning directly from founders and investors who understand these transition points can help shorten learning cycles, avoid predictable mistakes and improve the quality of decision-making. 

This session is relevant because practical operator experience is often more valuable than theory when businesses are trying to scale under pressure. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a set of hard-won lessons from founders who have scaled businesses and investors who know what strong growth looks like in practice. 

The session will surface common transition points, the decisions that matter most at each stage, and patterns attendees can apply immediately in their own business. 

Expect honest insight into what changes as companies grow, what tends to break, and how leaders can respond more effectively. 

Investors can be unforgiving when founders get the basics wrong. This session highlights the top ten fundraising mistakes founders make, with practical advice, live feedback and Q&A on how to improve. 

This session covers the top ten mistakes founders make when pitching for funding to investors, hosted by Karl Rego, Co-Chairman of Harvard Business Angels UK. 

It will focus on the practical issues that weaken investor confidence, from unclear narratives and poor preparation to weak evidence, unrealistic assumptions and avoidable mistakes in pitch materials. 

The session can also include live, real-time feedback on pitches and materials, plus extensive Q&A, giving founders the opportunity to learn directly from an experienced angel investor. 

Who should attend

This session is for startup founders, CEOs, CFOs and other current or aspiring C-suite executives preparing to raise investment. 

It will also be relevant for existing investors and advisers who support early-stage businesses through fundraising and investment readiness. 

Why it’s relevant

Fundraising is often a matter of existential importance for startups. Cash is the oxygen of the business, and the capital market is much tougher than it once was. 

Investors can be unforgiving if founders do not get the fundamentals right. Weak preparation, unclear positioning or poor-quality pitch materials can make it much harder to stand out and secure funding. 

This session is relevant because understanding what not to do can be just as valuable as knowing what investors want to see. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clear understanding of the top ten mistakes founders make when pitching for funding, and how to avoid them. 

The session will provide practical insight directly from a chair of one of the UK’s leading angel clubs, helping founders improve their chances of success. 

There may also be an opportunity for live coaching and feedback on pitches, alongside extensive Q&A. 

Leadership is not just something to talk about; it is something you can hear, feel and experience. This session uses a live 15-piece band to explore how leaders create alignment, confidence, rhythm and performance under pressure. 

This is a distinctive live session led by Jezz from Utah Saints, using a 15-piece band to bring leadership principles to life in a memorable and practical way. 

Through music, performance and conversation, the session will explore what leaders can learn from the way a band works together: listening, timing, trust, clear signals, shared purpose, adaptation and knowing when to lead from the front or create space for others. 

The band provides a powerful metaphor for business leadership. Every person has a role, but the performance only works when everyone understands the bigger picture, responds to each other and stays connected to the rhythm of the whole group. 

The session will look at how leaders create alignment without over-controlling, how teams perform when pressure rises, and how communication, confidence and collaboration shape the quality of execution. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, CEOs, senior leaders, managers, people leaders, investors and anyone interested in leadership, culture and team performance. 

It will be especially relevant for people leading growing teams, building culture, managing complexity or trying to improve collaboration, communication and execution across their organisation. 

Why it’s relevant

Leadership is often discussed in abstract terms, but the reality is much more human and dynamic. In business, as in music, performance depends on clarity, trust, timing, listening and the ability to respond to what is happening in the moment. 

As organisations grow, leaders have to coordinate more people, more moving parts and more decisions. If the rhythm is wrong, teams can drift out of sync, communication breaks down and performance suffers. 

This session is relevant because it makes leadership tangible. By seeing and hearing how a 15-piece band works together, attendees will gain a fresh perspective on how high-performing teams align, adapt and deliver together. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a memorable and practical view of leadership through the lens of live music and collective performance. 

The session will provide insight into how leaders create rhythm, trust and alignment across teams, and how communication can be made clearer without becoming overly controlling. 

You will also gain practical lessons on listening, timing, role clarity, collaboration, adaptability and how to help people perform together with greater confidence and energy. 

About:

You won't just hear about strategy in this session - you'll practise it.

This is a working session, not a lecture. Charlie Curson - expert facilitator, keynote speaker and author of international bestseller Be More Strategic – has designed and facilitated thousands of workshops across the globe, and brings the same high energy, pace and precision to every room he walks into. He takes a small group of founders and leaders through a set of high-impact exercises that make strategic thinking immediate, practical and genuinely fun.

Fast-paced and deliberately interactive, you'll leave with at least two or three things you can use immediately — and a clearer sense of where your biggest strategic opportunities lie.

Who should attend:

Leaders who feel they’re operating in reactive mode more than they’d like — and who want to leave with practical tools and fresh perspective, not just inspiration. Ideal for founders scaling a business, senior leaders navigating complexity, or anyone who wants to close the gap between their strategic intent and their day-to-day reality. Maximum benefit for those who attend as a leadership team.

Why it’s relevant:

Most strategy fails not because the thinking was wrong — but because leaders lack the practised capability to execute it under pressure. This session builds that muscle. It’s the difference between knowing strategy and being strategic.

What you will get:

• Hands-on experience of the key tools from the Be More Strategic framework

• A clear picture of where your strategic thinking is strong — and where the gaps are

• Practical approaches you can apply with your team immediately

• A small number of high-impact habits that compound over time

• The chance to think alongside other founders and leaders facing similar challenges

Investor Speed Networking is one of the most valuable parts of Climb26 - designed to give founders rare, direct access to active investors in a highly structured format.

These sessions bring together a curated group of founders and investors for a series of focused, one-to-one conversations. It is not general networking - it is time set aside to get feedback, test your proposition, and build meaningful relationships with people who are actively investing.

Important: This is not included in your standard Climb26 ticket.

To take part, you must book a separate add-on ticket in advance.

You can find and book your place here: Investor Speed Networking Tickets

Spaces are limited and sessions are curated to maximise value, so we strongly recommend securing your place early.

If you are looking for investment, feedback, or simply sharper insight from people who understand the funding landscape, this is one of the highest-value opportunities across the entire festival.

Terms can matter more than valuation. This session explores the clauses, red flags and decision principles founders need to understand before signing a term sheet. 

A term sheet is not just a step towards investment. It sets the commercial, legal and control framework for the relationship between founders, investors and the business over time. 

This session will explore which terms really matter, how they affect incentives, control, downside protection and future fundraising, and where founders can waste time focusing on issues that are less important. 

It will look at the practical implications of terms such as liquidation preferences, anti-dilution, board rights, consent matters, founder vesting, information rights and warranties, as well as the insurance and risk considerations that can influence how deals are structured. 

The focus will be on helping founders understand the real-world impact of terms, not just the legal language. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, CFOs and investors involved in raising, structuring or negotiating investment. 

It will be especially relevant for businesses preparing for a funding round, reviewing a term sheet, or trying to understand how terms may affect control, incentives, future rounds and exit outcomes. 

Why it’s relevant

Founders often focus heavily on valuation, but the terms attached to a deal can have a much greater impact on real outcomes. 

Terms can influence who controls key decisions, how proceeds are distributed, how future funding rounds work, what protections investors have, and how aligned the parties remain as the business grows. 

This session is relevant because a headline valuation can look attractive while the underlying terms create risk, pressure or misalignment later. Understanding what matters, what is negotiable and what should raise concern helps founders make better decisions before committing. 

What you’ll get

You will leave with a clearer priority list of the terms that matter most, the red flags that should prompt further advice or negotiation, and the areas that may be less important than they first appear. 

The session will provide practical decision principles for reviewing term sheets, assessing trade-offs and understanding the long-term consequences of different terms. 

You will also gain a better sense of how legal, investor and risk perspectives come together in a deal, helping you approach funding discussions with more confidence and discipline. 

Founders raise more effectively when they understand the investor mindset. This session explores how venture capital works, what investors look for, how decisions are made and how founders can build stronger relationships with funders. 

This is a practical session from Newton Venture Programme designed to help founders better understand the venture capital world from the investor’s side of the table. 

Drawing on the thinking behind Newton Foundations, it will explore how venture capital works, what investors are looking for, how decisions get made, and what founders can do to build stronger, more informed relationships with funders. 

The session will help founders move beyond the mechanics of fundraising and develop a clearer understanding of the wider venture ecosystem, investor incentives and the expectations that come with venture-backed growth. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, early-stage leadership teams and ambitious businesses that expect to raise investment now or in the future. 

It will also be useful for operators in high-growth businesses who want to understand how venture capital shapes decision-making, growth expectations and relationships with boards and investors. 

Why it’s relevant

Too many founders approach fundraising without fully understanding how venture capital works, what investors are assessing, or how venture-backed growth expectations differ from other routes to building a business. 

For founders, understanding the investor mindset helps shift the conversation from simply raising money to making better strategic decisions about funding, growth, investor fit and long-term ambition. 

This session is relevant because founders who understand how investors think are better placed to prepare, communicate clearly and build more productive relationships with funders.

Who should attend

You will leave with a clearer understanding of how venture capital works in practice, what investors mean when they talk about opportunity, risk and conviction, and how founders can prepare more effectively for investor conversations. 

The session will cover key elements of the venture ecosystem, including how capital flows, how investors evaluate startups, how they choose deals and how they support businesses after investing. 

For founders, this should translate into stronger fundraising preparation, better investor engagement and a more informed view of whether venture capital is the right fit for their business. 

Strong regional ecosystems are built through trust, collaboration and clear leadership. This session explores how regions can connect founders, funders and place leaders more effectively to create better routes to support, capital and growth. 

Strong regional ecosystems do not happen by accident. They are built through trust, shared ambition, visible leadership and practical collaboration between founders, funders, universities, corporates, local government and support organisations. 

Across the UK, combined authorities and regional leaders are playing an increasingly important role in shaping the conditions for business growth. But the most successful ecosystems are not built by one organisation working alone. They are built when the right people connect around clear regional strengths, founder needs, investment opportunities and long-term economic priorities. 

This session brings together key voices from combined authorities and regional innovation ecosystems to explore how places can work better together to support high-growth businesses, attract investment, retain talent and create stronger routes between founders, funders and markets. 

Who should attend 

This session is for combined authority and local authority leaders involved in economic growth, innovation, investment, skills or business support, as well as ecosystem builders working with startups, scaleups, universities, investors and corporate partners. 

It will also be relevant for founders looking to access regional support, networks and funding; funders and investors engaging with high-growth businesses outside London; universities, accelerators, incubators and innovation hubs; business support organisations; professional services firms; corporates interested in regional innovation and supply chains; and policy, place and economic development professionals focused on practical ecosystem building. 

Why it’s relevant 

The UK has strong regional assets: ambitious founders, research-intensive universities, specialist clusters, sector strengths, corporate anchors, skilled workforces and active local leadership. Too often, however, these assets are fragmented. 

Founders may not know where to find the right support. Investors may struggle to navigate regional deal flow. Public sector programmes may not always connect fully with private sector needs. Ecosystem builders may be doing valuable work, but without enough coordination, visibility or shared direction. 

At a time when growth, productivity, innovation and investment are central priorities for regions across the UK, collaboration is no longer optional. It is essential. For combined authorities, this is about building ecosystems that deliver economic impact. For founders, it is about better access to the people, capital and opportunities they need to grow. For funders, it is about understanding where credible regional opportunities are emerging. 

What you’ll take away

Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of what makes a regional ecosystem work, and the role combined authorities can play in supporting founders, funders and growth businesses. 

The session will provide practical examples of collaboration between public sector, private sector, investors and ecosystem organisations, along with ideas for making regions easier for founders and investors to navigate. 

You will also gain a stronger understanding of what founders need from regional ecosystems, what funders need to see before engaging more actively with regional opportunities, and how regions can improve connectivity between local strengths, business support, investment and market opportunities. 

Early traction is not the same as a sales engine. This session explores how founders build a more structured, measurable and scalable approach to sales, from customer focus and offer clarity to conversion and route to market. 

Most founders say they need investment, better marketing, more visibility or more introductions. Often, the real issue is that they have not yet built a reliable sales engine. 

They may have early traction, but revenue still depends too heavily on the founder, referrals, luck, personal networks or one-off bursts of activity. That can work in the early stages, but it becomes a constraint when the business needs to scale. 

This session explores how founders move from ad hoc sales activity to a more serious, repeatable and measurable approach to revenue growth. It will look at how to understand customers more clearly, sharpen the offer, improve conversion, choose the right route to market, and build a sales process that can scale beyond the founder. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders who have early traction but want more consistent sales growth, as well as startup and scaleup leaders who are still too dependent on founder-led selling. 

It will also be relevant for business owners who know they need to improve their sales process but are not sure where to start, commercial leaders looking to sharpen proposition, conversion and route to market, and investors, advisers or ecosystem partners who want to better understand what scalable sales capability looks like in growing businesses. 

Why it’s relevant

Sales is one of the biggest constraints on growth, but it is often misunderstood. Many founders assume they need more leads, more marketing, more introductions or more visibility, when the real issue may be a weak offer, unclear customer focus, poor follow-up, low conversion or a sales process that only works when the founder is directly involved. 

For businesses looking to scale, sales has to become more than energy and ambition. It needs to become a system. 

This session is relevant because it tackles one of the most practical growth questions for any founder: how do you turn sales from something reactive and founder-dependent into something repeatable, measurable and scalable? 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer understanding of how founders move from early sales to repeatable revenue, and why more leads are not always the answer. 

The session will help you identify where sales growth is really getting stuck, what makes an offer easier to understand and easier to buy, and how to improve conversion from interest to revenue. 

You will also gain practical insight into what the founder should keep doing, delegate or systemise; how to think about sales before hiring a salesperson; what to fix before spending more money on marketing; and how to build the foundations of a serious sales engine. 

About

A candid roundtable exploring one of the most consequential aspects of venture funding: what happens to founder control once external capital enters the picture. From board composition to protective provisions, this session cuts through the complexity to give founders a clear-eyed view of where control is won, lost, and, critically, where it can be deliberately structured and preserved.

Who Should Attend

• Early and growth-stage founders who are fundraising or have recently closed a round

• Angel investors and venture capitalists
• Legal advisers and in-house counsel working with start-ups and scale-ups
• Ecosystem players — accelerators, incubators, and advisers — working with founding teams at critical inflection points

Why It’s Relevant

Governance disputes, forced CEO transitions, and founder dilution remain painfully common even among well-advised founders. Understanding the legal architecture of control is no longer optional; it is foundational to building a company you can actually run. With deal timelines accelerating and down rounds resetting governance structures, this conversation has never been more urgent.

What You Will Get

• Practical insight into the clauses that most directly affect founder autonomy: board seats, reserved matters, anti-dilution provisions, drag-along rights, and veto rights
• A framework for evaluating governance terms before you sign
• Drafting strategies and structures you can design into funding documents from the outset
• Candid, peer-to-peer discussion in an off-the-record format

A session for founders tired of reactive reports, brittle or non-existent forecasts, and decisions made on gut feel.

Who Should Attend

Founders, leaders and CxOs of businesses turning over £1m+ (or those aspiring to)

 What The Session Covers

The content covers three practical shifts: 

1. from hindsight to foresight, 
2. from volume to signal, 
3. and from information to decision. 

 What You Will Take Away

Attendees will leave with an action plan or self-assessment they can take action on the same week.

If the NHS were built today with a startup mindset, where would it begin—and what would it prioritise?

This panel brings together founders and healthcare leaders to discuss conventional thinking around one of the world’s most complex health systems. We’ll explore what happens when principles like speed, experimentation, and user-centric design are applied to public healthcare—and where those ideas collide with reality.

For investors and life sciences professionals, the conversation will focus on where meaningful opportunity exists: what’s genuinely investable, what can scale within NHS constraints, and how innovation can move beyond pilots into system-wide impact. We’ll also confront the harder questions—funding models, procurement friction, and the cultural barriers that slow progress.

Expect candid perspectives, practical insight, and a sharper lens on how entrepreneurial thinking could reshape the NHS—and where it may fall short.

Busk Your Business turns pitching into a live festival moment. Instead of formal applications or closed judging rooms, founders can step up, take the mic and pitch their business on the spot to whoever is in the audience at that moment. 

It’s open, fast-paced and unpredictable - designed to create energy, visibility and real engagement in the middle of the event. A judging panel tracks pitches across the festival and selects a winner at the end, but the real value is in the experience itself. 

For founders, it’s a chance to test your message live, build confidence and get your business in front of an active audience. For everyone watching, it’s one of the most dynamic ways to discover new ideas and connect with the people behind them.

Not all capital is the same. This session explores how growing businesses can choose the right funding route, structure rounds effectively and avoid taking money that creates problems later. 

Raising capital is not just about securing funding; it is about choosing the type of capital that best supports the strategy, timing and long-term direction of the business. 

Different sources of funding bring different expectations, levels of flexibility and implications for future growth, governance and fundraising. 

This session will explore how founders and finance leaders make better capital decisions, how rounds should be structured to support the business rather than distort it, and what can happen when businesses take money that is poorly matched to their stage or ambition. 

The discussion will focus on strategic fit, process and the practical trade-offs that come with different funding routes. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, CFOs, finance directors and investors involved in shaping the capital strategy of a growing business. 

It will be especially relevant for leadership teams considering a fundraise, evaluating different forms of capital or trying to understand how today’s financing decisions may affect future options. 

Why it’s relevant

The wrong capital can be expensive in ways that are not always obvious at the time. It can create pressure on timing, strategy, governance and future rounds, and in some cases can limit the company’s ability to make the right decisions later. 

Many businesses focus heavily on whether they can raise, without spending enough time on whether the capital is the right fit. 

This session is relevant because thoughtful funding strategy can strengthen flexibility, improve outcomes and help businesses grow on terms that support rather than constrain the next stage of development. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a practical framework for thinking about funding choices, including how to assess fit between capital type, business stage and strategic goals. 

The session will also explore how to structure rounds more effectively, what common traps founders and finance teams fall into, and how to avoid decisions that create unnecessary pressure or limit future fundraising options. 

A startup can often only grow as fast as its leaders. This session explores the role of the CEO, the priorities that matter most, and the frameworks that help founders lead more effectively as complexity increases. 

The role of a startup CEO changes quickly as the business grows. What worked in the earliest stage is rarely enough once the company has more customers, more people, more complexity and greater pressure from investors, partners and the market. 

This session will cover practical tips, traps and proven frameworks around strategy, people, execution and cashflow or funding. It will help founders think more clearly about where their attention should go, how to make better leadership choices and how to focus on the areas that create the greatest return for the business. 

The session can also include a live hotseat-style group coaching element with audience members, plus extensive Q&A, making it highly practical and relevant to the real challenges founders are facing. 

Who should attend

This session is for startup founders, CEOs and current or aspiring C-suite executives. 

It will also be relevant for investors, advisers and board members who support founders and want a clearer view of the leadership challenges that shape startup growth. 

Why it’s relevant

A startup can often only grow as fast as its leaders. As the business scales, the quality of leadership becomes one of the biggest determinants of progress, resilience and performance. 

For a CEO, attention is one of the rarest and most valuable resources. Yet as complexity increases, founders are pulled into more decisions, more problems and more competing priorities. 

This session is relevant because it helps CEOs understand the areas where their focus has the greatest impact, and where poor leadership habits can slow growth, weaken teams or create unnecessary pressure. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with greater clarity on the core dimensions of the startup CEO role, and how to increase effectiveness across strategy, people, execution and cashflow. 

The session will provide practical frameworks, tips and traps to help founders lead with more focus and confidence. 

You may also have the opportunity to learn through live coaching and feedback on real leadership challenges, alongside the experiences and questions of peers facing similar growth pressures. 

Keeping great people is not just about culture or benefits. This session explores how founders and people leaders build teams that stay engaged, make better decisions and scale without losing clarity or momentum. 

As businesses grow, the way teams are structured has a direct impact on retention, engagement, speed and execution. Teams expand, reporting lines become more layered and responsibilities can start to overlap, creating friction at exactly the point the business needs to move faster. 

This session will explore how founders, COOs and people leaders design organisations that help people do their best work, make decisions confidently and stay connected to the mission as the business becomes more complex. 

It will look at how to shape teams, reporting lines, responsibilities and decision rights in a way that creates clarity, reduces bottlenecks and helps retain high-performing people through growth. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, COOs, people leaders and senior managers responsible for shaping teams, retaining talent and improving how a growing business operates. 

It will be especially relevant for leadership teams experiencing friction, duplicated effort, unclear accountability, slower execution or rising pressure on people as the organisation expands. 

Why it’s relevant

Many businesses lose good people not because the opportunity is weak, but because the organisation around them has become unclear, frustrating or difficult to navigate. 

Org design often lags behind growth. Businesses evolve quickly, but structure is not always updated with the same discipline, leading to confusion about roles, weak decision-making and unnecessary layers of process. 

This session is relevant because retention and engagement are closely linked to clarity, trust and effective ways of working. Better structure is not about adding hierarchy; it is about creating the conditions that allow people to contribute, grow and stay. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with practical principles for building teams that scale, including how to think about structure, reporting lines, role clarity, decision rights and engagement. 

The session will provide a useful checklist for reviewing whether your current organisation is helping or hindering speed, accountability and retention. 

You will also gain insight into how strong leaders create the clarity, confidence and working environment that help great people stay and perform as the business grows. 

High-growth companies increasingly need to look beyond London to find customers, talent and partnerships, but navigating regional ecosystems and public sector opportunities isn’t straightforward.

This panel brings together local authority leaders, industry partners and scaleups to explore how regions are turning growth ambitions into real demand and how businesses can plug into those opportunities.

From procurement and partnerships to AI adoption and sector clusters, the discussion will focus on what’s working in practice, where barriers remain, and how to unlock growth on both sides.

 The session will give founders a clearer route into regional markets, while offering local authorities insight into how to better engage and scale innovation with high-growth businesses.

Idea to Clickable Prototype in 60 Minutes Intermediate Level

What it's about: 

A hands-on intermediate session where you'll build a fully hosted, interactive digital product using Lovable's AI-native platform - complete with frontend, a database, and provisional authentication.

Who should attend: 

Those who've dabbled with AI tools and are ready to build something real. Developers, product thinkers, and founders who want a live, shareable product fast.

Why you should attend: 

Skip the wireframes. Skip the disconnected tools. Build something you can actually share, test, and evolve from day one.

What you'll leave with: 

An application hosted on Lovable Cloud, live at its own URL.

A practical early-stage session for founders, start ups and scale ups to stress-test their business proposition, audience and product/service focus, and ensure their brand aligns with their pitch to investors. 

Can you clearly articulate why your business deserves investment, and does your brand strategy, proposition and identity align with your pitch? 

This dynamic workshop empowers start ups and scale ups to assess – and improve – their investment readiness, so they can nail that pitch. 

What it’s about? 

In the early stages of building a business, the biggest risk is not moving too slowly on delivery, but moving too quickly without real evidence that the problem, customer and proposition are right. This session will focus on how founders move from assumption to validation, testing whether the problem is meaningful, whether the buyer is clear, and whether customers are genuinely willing to pay. It will explore how early-stage teams can learn quickly, avoid false positives and build evidence that supports stronger product, commercial and fundraising decisions. 

Who should attend? 

This session is for early-stage founders, startups and scale-up leaders keen to nail their pitch as they prepare for early stage investment. It is particularly relevant for: - complex and/or technical businesses that need to communicate clearly without losing credibility - people who want to challenge their thinking with a brand expert who has helped turn conceptual ideas and undeveloped products into global seven-figure successes. 

Why it’s relevant 

You may have a truly game-changing product or service-led innovation, but if that doesn't translate into a clear commercial proposition, with a market-ready identity, it is difficult to stand out when pitching for investment. Brand plays a critical role here, repeatedly driving growth, credibility and investment readiness. But in the early stages of a business journey, when funds are stretched, committing to a strategic brand project feels too much like a 'nice to have'. 

What you’ll get 

This practical workshop will work at pace through the brand canvas, allowing founders to stress-test their brand strategy and work among a like-minded cohort, guided by a strategic designer who specialises in driving monentum for complex B2B organisations. Although a taster session, you'll leave with a more rounded view of your brand proposition, so you can begin to perfect your identity and positioning, and ultimately, nail that pitch!

A fireside chat with Christopher Kenna exploring entrepreneurship, inclusive media, commercial growth, leadership and the lessons learned from building businesses in fast-moving and highly visible markets. 

This fireside chat with Christopher Kenna will explore the founder journey behind building businesses at the intersection of media, creativity, diversity, technology and commercial growth. 

Christopher is known for founding Brand Advance, a business created to help brands and agencies reach diverse audiences more effectively. He has been described as CEO and Co-Founder of Brand Advance, a company connecting brands with diverse audiences globally, and has also held a diversity and inclusion leadership role with OUTvertising.  

The conversation will look at what it takes to build a business with a strong mission, how inclusive media and audience understanding are changing the way brands grow, and what founders learn when scaling quickly in a competitive market. 

It will also explore the more human side of entrepreneurship: leadership, pressure, judgement, resilience, visibility and the personal lessons that come from building through both opportunity and challenge. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, CEOs, marketers, media leaders, investors, creative businesses, agency leaders and anyone interested in entrepreneurship, inclusive growth and audience-led business building. 

It will be especially relevant for people building mission-led companies, scaling creative or media businesses, working with diverse audiences, or trying to understand how purpose, commercial performance and leadership come together in practice. 

Why it’s relevant

The best founder stories are rarely linear. They involve ambition, growth, pressure, learning, difficult decisions and moments of reinvention. 

Christopher’s experience offers a valuable lens on how founders build in markets where audience trust, cultural understanding and commercial credibility all matter. His work has sat at the intersection of brand, media, inclusion and entrepreneurship, areas that are increasingly important for businesses trying to grow in more diverse, fragmented and competitive markets. 

This session is relevant because it will move beyond polished success stories and explore what founders can learn from the real experience of building, leading and adapting as the business, market and founder all evolve. 

What you’ll take away

You will hear honest insight into the realities of building and scaling a business with a strong mission and a clear commercial proposition. 

The conversation will offer lessons on founder leadership, inclusive media, brand credibility, audience understanding, growth, resilience and decision-making under pressure. 

You will leave with a stronger understanding of how founders can build businesses that connect with communities, create commercial value and stay adaptable through change. 

Unless you are genuinely unique, and let’s face it, how many businesses actually are - you work in a world full of competition. 

Business can be tough and with that, you want to make sure you promote the full range of your products and services to give yourself the best chance of standing out and engaging with as many prospects and customers as possible.  But is this desire to promote your “full service” range actually counter-intuitive and detrimental to your overall growth potential?

Why Should You Attend?

This session considers the relative merits of the wide-ranging generalist approach v a more laser-focused specialist route, sharing a host of different Case Studies from businesses who are embracing this “PICK A LANE” Strategy – with great success. 

So, what would be the advantages of you PICKING A LANE if you did embrace specialism?

• What could you even specialise in?
• Where would you start?
• What would be the plan?
• Would it work for your business?
• And more…..

Packed with practical hints, tips and advice, this is a really eye-opening session that might just transform your sales, marketing, social media and ultimately, your sales performance for the rest of 2026 and beyond.

Not to be missed if you want your business to beat the competition more often and with more confidence.

Who Should Attend? 

This workshop session will resonate and work for ambitious businesses, particularly Business Founders, Directors, Sales Professionals and anyone responsible for growth & growth strategy.  

What Will Be the Key Takeaways?

• What opportunities you and your business has to cut through the noise and PICK A LANE
• How to embrace a PICK A LANE strategy for growth & success

Investor Speed Networking is one of the most valuable parts of Climb26 - designed to give founders rare, direct access to active investors in a highly structured format.

These sessions bring together a curated group of founders and investors for a series of focused, one-to-one conversations. It is not general networking - it is time set aside to get feedback, test your proposition, and build meaningful relationships with people who are actively investing.

Important: This is not included in your standard Climb26 ticket.

To take part, you must book a separate add-on ticket in advance.

You can find and book your place here: Investor Speed Networking Tickets

Spaces are limited and sessions are curated to maximise value, so we strongly recommend securing your place early.

If you are looking for investment, feedback, or simply sharper insight from people who understand the funding landscape, this is one of the highest-value opportunities across the entire festival.

Later-stage fundraising is more disciplined than ever. This session explores how investors assess scale, risk, timing and terms, and what founders need to evidence before going to market. 

For scaleups raising later-stage capital, success is rarely just about having a strong story. Investors are looking for clear evidence, credible metrics, a well-understood risk profile and a business that can demonstrate why it is ready for the next stage of growth. 

This session will unpack how later-stage investors assess opportunities in the current market, what gives them confidence, where deals often come under pressure and how founders can prepare more effectively. 

It will offer a candid look at how investment decisions are really made, from commercial traction and financial discipline to process, structure and terms. 

Who should attend

This session is for scaleup founders, CFOs, senior leadership teams, investors and advisers involved in growth-stage fundraising. 

It will be especially relevant for businesses preparing to raise later-stage capital, considering the right timing for a process, or wanting to understand how investors evaluate scale, risk and readiness in today’s market. 

Why it’s relevant

Later-stage fundraising has become more disciplined, more evidence-led and more demanding. Investors are looking closely at the quality of revenue, operational maturity, efficiency, leadership and the business’s ability to de-risk the next phase of growth. 

In that environment, raising well depends not only on ambition, but on fit, timing and credibility. Founders often focus on valuation and storytelling, when the real differentiators are usually preparation, clarity and the ability to demonstrate why the business is investable now. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer understanding of the practical checklist later-stage investors use to assess scaleup opportunities, including the metrics, milestones and risks that matter most. 

The session will also highlight common traps around terms and process, and give founders a sharper view of what they should build, evidence or improve over the next eight to twelve weeks in order to strengthen outcomes and run a more effective fundraising process. 

Voice coach and speaking director Nic Redman has had enough. Sound confident. Be authentic. Project your voice. Have gravitas. Presence. But what if that advice is getting in the way? 

The most powerful and unique tool in your business has been under your nose the whole time - quite literally. And yet, everyone’s been told the same thing. Having spent years working with broadcasters, founders, and household-name brands, Nic is here to tell you that the secret to a voice people genuinely want to listen to is about ditching the public speaking platitudes and finding a way back to a voice that’s unmistakably yours. 

Who Should Attend 

Whether you’ve never given your voice a second thought, or you’ve sat through presentation skills training and walked away feeling like something still wasn’t quite right, this is for you. Complete beginners and seasoned speakers alike. If you’ve ever finished a pitch, a podcast, or a big conversation and thought “crikey, that didn’t go the way I wanted it to” then come along! 

Why It’s Relevant 

Right now you might be watching your nerves undermine a pitch you know inside out. You might be side-stepping podcasts and speaking opportunities because you’re not sure your voice is “good enough.” Or getting the words right but feeling like nobody’s really hearing you. Every time that happens, it’s not just a missed moment it’s missed revenue, missed partnerships, missed growth. The people who cut through have stopped performing a version of themselves built from other people’s advice. 

What You Will Get From It 

A fresh way of thinking about your voice for pitches, on podcasts and in rooms that matter. You’ll leave with the antidote to that weird high pitch version of you or monotone drawl your voice defaults to under pressure, breathing techniques that bring you power and calm in high-stakes moments, and the secret to making your listeners properly feel something when you speak. Tools, exercises, and enough good craic to make this one of the sessions you remember. Come in dreading the sound of your own voice, leave knowing how to speak so people listen and have fun doing it.

How Founders Can Build Social Value Into Commercial Partnerships

Social value is no longer a “nice to have” or something to add at the end of a pitch. For scaling businesses, it can be a practical route into stronger partnerships, better procurement conversations, investor confidence, talent attraction and local credibility.

This roundtable will explore how founders and business leaders can move from good intent to measurable action, building partnerships with charities, communities, education providers, places and funders in ways that create both commercial value and real-world impact.

Led by Clare Sweeney, founder of Keepace Consulting and curator of the Climb26 Impact Zone, the session will be a practical conversation about what works, what gets in the way, and how businesses can design partnerships that are credible, useful and commercially relevant.

Who should attend

This roundtable is for founders, scale-up leaders, investors, ecosystem partners, CSR/ESG leads, professional services firms and anyone building partnerships with growing businesses.

It will be especially useful for people who want to:

Understand how social value can support growth, procurement and investment conversations.

Build better partnerships with charities, communities, schools, places or local organisations.

Move beyond one-off volunteering or sponsorship into more strategic impact.

Make their good work easier to explain, measure and communicate.

What attendees will get from it

Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of how social value can support business growth without becoming corporate waffle.

They will get practical ideas for turning existing relationships, community activity, volunteering, sponsorship or place-based work into stronger commercial and impact stories.

They will also come away with a simple way to think about partnership design: who benefits, what changes, how it is measured, and how it helps the business grow in a credible way.

Technology has a key role to play in the sovereign capabilities of the UK, particularly around defence and security. TECH SY is building a defence and security tech cluster blueprint to better contribute to this national agenda and maximise the benefits of the regional Defence Growth Deal. This roundtable will bring together key stakeholders in this space including the defence landscape, primes, policymakers, investors, and innovation leaders to explore how the region can strengthen its position as a defence and security tech cluster, opening up opportunities and markets for tech companies.

The roundtable will focus on identifying shared challenges and opportunities across areas such as dual-use innovation, supply chain engagement, access to procurement pathways, investment, and talent pipeline. It will provide a space for open, strategic discussion on how to better connect SMEs to defence markets, align regional assets with national priorities, and accelerate collaboration between industry, academia, and the public sector.

Through facilitated discussion, the session will aim to:

• Surface priority actions to support defence tech growth in South Yorkshire
• Identify gaps in support around finance, market access, and capability development
• Strengthen relationships between local innovators and national defence stakeholders
• Inform the development of a more coordinated, place-based approach to defence and security innovation

Why It's Important

Outputs from the roundtable will directly inform TECH SY’s ongoing cluster development work, ensuring that future interventions are industry-led, strategically aligned, and focused on unlocking economic and innovation impact for the region.

About:

Dedicated space for women who are building and growing businesses. Theses session bring people together to share experiences, exchange insight, and build community in a warm and honest environment.​

Whether you are at the beginning of your journey, scaling with momentum, or learning from those who have already travelled the path ahead, She Scales offers meaningful connection, practical conversation, and genuine support. We welcome female founders, non‑binary founders who feel aligned with women’s spaces, and allies who wish to contribute, learn, and support.​

Why its relevant:

She Scales is a core community event for the NatWest Accelerator for female founders connection and co‑working day delivered across every NatWest Accelerator huh, which you are welcome to join. 

📚 What to expect:​

• A relaxed and welcoming start with informal introductions.​
• A focused session with conversations led by the Accelerator and our Venture Banking team
• Themes that explore mindset, confidence, leadership, resilience, scaling, funding, and practical insight drawn from the realities of entrepreneurial growth.​
• Time to continue conversations, spark ideas, and connect with founders who understand your journey.

Investability has become more disciplined and evidence-led. This session explores how investors are underwriting opportunities now, what signals matter most, and where founders often misjudge how their business is being assessed. 

The definition of an investable business has become sharper, more evidence-led and more disciplined. In today’s market, investors are looking beyond ambition and storytelling to understand the real quality of traction, the strength of the evidence, the risks in the model and the credibility of the team’s ability to execute. 

This session will provide a clear view of how investors are underwriting opportunities now, what metrics and signals matter most, and where founders most often misjudge how their business is being assessed. 

It will focus on the practical reality of investability in the current environment, rather than outdated assumptions or generic fundraising advice. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, investors and ecosystem leaders who want a clearer understanding of what makes a business credible and fundable in today’s market. 

It will be especially relevant for early-stage and growth-stage founders preparing to raise, as well as those supporting businesses through investment readiness and fundraising. 

Why it’s relevant

Many founders still approach fundraising with assumptions that no longer reflect how investors are making decisions. 

In a more selective market, the gap between what founders believe is investable and what investors will actually underwrite can waste time, weaken processes and reduce the overall quality of opportunities coming to market. 

This session is relevant because better alignment around underwriting reality helps businesses prepare more effectively, improves investor conversations and raises the standard of what is presented as truly investment-ready. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer, current checklist of what investors mean by investable today, including the evidence, metrics and de-risking signals they are most focused on. 

The session will also help you identify where common gaps show up, how founders can close them, and what stronger investment readiness looks like in practice. 

AI is changing how businesses identify prospects, personalise engagement and support commercial teams. This session explores how to use AI practically to build healthier pipeline, improve conversion and drive growth. 

This is a practical session exploring how businesses can use AI to strengthen sales, improve business development and build a healthier customer pipeline. 

The conversation will look at how commercial teams can combine strategy, technology and sharper customer understanding to win more business, improve conversion and create more consistent growth. 

It will focus on where AI can make a real difference across sales and customer acquisition, while also recognising the importance of human judgement, positioning and disciplined commercial execution. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, sales leaders, commercial teams, business development professionals, marketing leaders and anyone responsible for driving growth. 

It will be especially valuable for businesses looking to improve customer acquisition, sharpen their go-to-market activity, build pipeline more effectively or understand how AI can support commercial performance. 

Why it’s relevant

Many businesses struggle not because demand is absent, but because pipeline is inconsistent, sales activity is fragmented and customer acquisition is harder and more expensive than it should be. 

At the same time, AI is starting to reshape how businesses identify prospects, personalise engagement, support sales activity and improve the customer journey. 

This session is relevant because it looks at how businesses can apply that opportunity in a practical way to drive growth, rather than treating AI as a generic technology trend. 

What you’ll take away

You will gain practical insight into how to build stronger pipeline, improve sales and business development performance, and use AI more effectively across customer acquisition and commercial activity. 

The session will highlight where AI can add real value, where human judgement still matters most, and what businesses should be doing now to stay competitive and convert more opportunity into revenue. 

There is no single route to scale. This session explores the realities of buying, building, being acquired and growing without equity funding, with honest lessons from founders who have taken different paths. 

This is a candid founder conversation exploring different routes to business growth, from acquisition-led expansion to organic scaling. 

Bringing together leaders with first-hand experience of buying businesses, being acquired, pursuing acquisitions that did not work, and growing without equity funding, the session will offer an honest look at the choices, risks and trade-offs involved in building a business. 

The discussion will move beyond theory to explore how founders make growth decisions in practice, what they learn from both success and setback, and how different routes can shape the future of the company. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, CEOs, investors, senior leaders and advisers interested in the realities of business growth. 

It will be especially relevant for those thinking about how to scale, weighing up different strategic options, or trying to understand the benefits and risks of acquisition, organic growth and external funding. 

Why it’s relevant

There is no single route to scaling a successful business. Some founders grow through acquisition, some build steadily and organically, and others discover that strategies which look right on paper do not always deliver in practice. 

This session is relevant because it brings together contrasting real-world experiences and helps the audience understand that growth can take very different forms depending on the business, the market, the timing and the ambition of the founder. 

It will help leaders think more carefully about the route that fits their own business, rather than assuming there is one standard path to scale. 

What you’ll take away

You will hear practical and honest insight into different approaches to growth, including what can make acquisition attractive, why deals and integrations can fall short, and what organic growth can achieve without outside equity. 

You will also gain a broader understanding of how founders make growth decisions, what trade-offs they face and what others can learn from their successes and setbacks.

Strategic thinking is a practical leadership skill. This session explores how founders and leaders can think ahead, make better decisions and build the habits needed to act with greater purpose and impact. 

This session is based on Charlie Curson’s work with leaders, teams and organisations, and his book Be More Strategic. Charlie helps people and organisations think strategically, act decisively and deliver more meaningful impact.  

For founders and business leaders, the challenge is often not a lack of ambition or effort. It is that they are pulled into constant reaction: urgent decisions, operational demands, short-term pressure and competing priorities. 

This session will explore how leaders can escape the reactive cycle and build the strategic capabilities needed to think ahead, influence outcomes and make smarter decisions.  

It will focus on practical tools, behavioural insight and real-world relevance, helping attendees understand how to move from firefighting to more deliberate leadership and stronger long-term choices.  

Who should attend

This session is for founders, CEOs, senior leaders, operators and ambitious professionals who want to become more strategic in how they lead, decide and build. 

It will be especially relevant for people who feel stretched by competing priorities, are making important decisions about growth or direction, or want to step back from day-to-day noise and think more clearly about what they are really trying to achieve. 

Why it’s relevant

Many founders still approach fundraising with assumptions that no longer reflect how investors are making decisions. 

In a more selective market, the gap between what founders believe is investable and what investors will actually underwrite can waste time, weaken processes and reduce the overall quality of opportunities coming to market. 

This session is relevant because better alignment around underwriting reality helps businesses prepare more effectively, improves investor conversations and raises the standard of what is presented as truly investment-ready. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer understanding of what it means to be more strategic in practice, and how to move away from reactive decision-making towards clearer, more deliberate leadership. 

The session will provide practical ideas for building strategic capability, improving judgement, influencing outcomes and making smarter decisions. 

You will also gain a stronger sense of how to apply strategic thinking to your own leadership, business decisions, career choices and personal direction. 

About

The mobilisation of domestic institutional capital is one of the most significant levers available for accelerating

regional economic growth. This roundtable brings together institutional investors, senior pension fund trustees,

venture capital leaders, and policy makers to address a vital financial mandate: how to effectively unlock Local

Government Pension Schemes (LGPS) to support regional innovation ecosystems in light of the Mansion

House Reforms and the transition towards consolidated pension mega funds. Drawing on frameworks

discussed at recent national investment forums, this session will explore how to bridge the gap between large-

scale pool requirements and the capital needs of early-stage, high-growth deeptech and scientific clusters.

Moving beyond traditional risk-averse paradigms, the panel will map out robust investment structures, co-

investment models, and regulatory pathways that allow local wealth to safely and profitably back regional

innovation.

Who Should Attend

Pension Fund Trustees & Chief Investment Officers: Seeking to recognise fiduciary-compliant

mechanisms for allocating capital into regional venture and infrastructure assets.

Venture Capital & Fund Managers: Raising patient capital to invest in regional science, technology, and

advanced manufacturing spin-outs.

Founders & Scale-Up Executives: Looking to understand the future landscape of regional funding and

the entry of institutional liquidity into the market.

Civic Leaders & Economic Policy Makers: Focused on devolution strategies, capital regionalisation, and

creating attractive investment pipelines.

Why Its Relevant

Local Government Pension Schemes hold significant investment power, yet historically, only a fraction of

these assets has been deployed into the high-growth innovation economies of their host regions. The Mansion

House Reforms have fundamentally shifted this landscape by setting clear objectives for funds to allocate up

to 10% of their assets to unlisted, high-growth companies, alongside a target of 5% for direct local investment.

With increasing political consensus around capital activation, devolution, and this pension mandate, there is a

unique window to build new investment channels. This session is critical because it addresses the practical

barriers to deployment, such as minimum ticket sizes, liquidity constraints, and fee structures. By aligning the

long-term horizons of pension liabilities with the patient capital requirements of deeptech and scientific

Page 3 of 4breakthroughs, regions can create self-sustaining funding loops that drive both commercial returns and

localised economic resilience.

What You Will Get From It

The Institutional Framework: Gain direct insights into the structural models required to safely pool and

deploy institutional assets in regional venture funds.

Co-Investment Strategies: Learn how regional investment vehicles can successfully co-invest alongside

national bodies and institutional pools to derisk early-stage deployment.

Pipeline Development Insights: Understand how to build institutional-grade pipelines within regional

ecosystems that meet the rigorous due diligence standards of major funds.

Influence on Capital Policy: Contribute directly to the post-event white paper aimed at shaping national

policy around regional pension deployment and fiduciary mandates.

Investor Speed Networking is one of the most valuable parts of Climb26 - designed to give founders rare, direct access to active investors in a highly structured format.

These sessions bring together a curated group of founders and investors for a series of focused, one-to-one conversations. It is not general networking - it is time set aside to get feedback, test your proposition, and build meaningful relationships with people who are actively investing.

Important: This is not included in your standard Climb26 ticket.

To take part, you must book a separate add-on ticket in advance.

You can find and book your place here: Investor Speed Networking Tickets

Spaces are limited and sessions are curated to maximise value, so we strongly recommend securing your place early.

If you are looking for investment, feedback, or simply sharper insight from people who understand the funding landscape, this is one of the highest-value opportunities across the entire festival.

Over the last few months, ClimbUK and our partners have been hosting a series of competitions across the country, giving ambitious founders the chance to share their businesses, build new connections and raise their profile.

At Climb26, we are bringing the winners together for a special celebratory session in association with Venture.Community.

This will be an informal, high-energy, open mic-style session where investors can meet the founders, hear quick introductions from the winning businesses, and connect over drinks.

Venture.Community will be buying the drinks!!!

Why attend?

This session is designed for investors who want to meet emerging founders in a more relaxed and conversational setting.

You will have the opportunity to:

• Meet competition winners from across the ClimbUK Tour and partner competitions
• Hear directly from founders in a short, lively, open mic format
• Discover businesses that have already stood out through regional and partner-led competitions
• Build relationships with founders, fellow investors and the wider Venture.Community network
• Enjoy a more informal networking moment within the Climb26 Festival

Register your interest

Places are limited, so please register if you would like to attend, meet the founders and join the celebration.

We look forward to seeing you there.

As businesses scale, leadership has to change. This session explores how to build the right executive team, clarify roles and decision rights, and create a leadership cadence that drives execution rather than complexity. 

As a business scales, leadership has to evolve with it. The team, structure and ways of working that helped a company reach its early milestones are often not the same as those needed for the next phase of growth. 

Roles become more specialised, decision-making needs to be clearer, and the leadership team has to operate with greater discipline, alignment and trust. 

This session will explore how founders and senior leaders build the right executive team for a scaling business, how responsibilities and decision rights should change over time, and what it takes to create an operating cadence that supports stronger execution rather than more complexity. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, CEOs, COOs, people leaders and first-time executives navigating the realities of leadership in a growing business. 

It will be particularly valuable for those building out an executive team, redefining leadership roles, or trying to improve how the senior team works together as the organisation becomes larger and more demanding. 

Why it’s relevant

Many businesses do not struggle because the product is weak, but because the leadership system around the business has not kept pace with growth. 

As organisations scale, misalignment at executive level can slow decisions, create confusion, weaken accountability and undermine performance across the company. 

This session is relevant because the quality of the leadership team, and how it operates, is often one of the biggest determinants of whether a scaleup continues to grow effectively or begins to stall. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer model for how executive leadership should evolve as a business grows, including how to think about roles, structure, decision rights and operating rhythm. 

The session will also highlight the early warning signs of executive misalignment and provide practical insight into how leadership teams can work more effectively together to maintain clarity, pace and organisational confidence. 

AI adoption is not just a technology challenge. This session explores how leaders help people understand change, build confidence, manage risk and adopt AI in a way that strengthens rather than unsettles the organisation. 

AI adoption is often discussed in terms of tools, capability and competitive advantage, but for most organisations the real challenge is leadership. 

Introducing AI successfully requires more than selecting the right technology. It means helping people understand what is changing, reducing fear and uncertainty, building confidence, addressing skills gaps and creating the trust needed for adoption to succeed. 

This session will explore the human side of AI in business, looking at how roles are evolving, what leaders need to communicate clearly, where governance matters most and how organisations can move at pace without losing people along the way. 

Who should attend

This session is for founders, CEOs, senior leaders, people leaders and anyone responsible for leading change, building teams or shaping AI adoption within an organisation. 

It will be especially relevant for businesses trying to introduce AI in a practical way while maintaining trust, engagement and clarity across the organisation. 

Why it’s relevant

Many organisations are under pressure to move quickly on AI, but speed without leadership can create confusion, resistance and unintended risk. 

Employees want to understand what AI means for their work, how decisions will be made and where human judgement still matters. At the same time, leaders need to think carefully about skills, governance, communication and culture if adoption is to be effective and sustainable. 

This session is relevant because the organisations that benefit most from AI are unlikely to be those with the most tools, but those with the leadership capability to introduce change in a way that people trust and engage with. 

What you’ll take away

You will leave with a clearer understanding of what leaders need to get right when introducing AI, from communication and trust to governance, skills and role design. 

The session will offer practical insight into how to lead adoption without creating unnecessary fear, how to build confidence across teams and how to create the conditions for AI to be used responsibly, effectively and with stronger organisational buy-in. 

Leeds Digital Drinks is running a special Story Time session at ClimbUK - one of the UK's biggest events for founders and business leaders.

This is a one-hour session hosted by Crispin Read (CEO, The Coders Guild and co-organiser of Leeds Digital Drinks). Three speakers. Three stories. Rapid-fire format, proper Q&A, and a room full of people who've been through it themselves.

How this session works

This is a variation on our usual monthly format - designed for a bigger stage and a room full of founders who are there to learn from each other.

Crispin will open by introducing the Story Time concept and Leeds Digital Drinks, explain the three-slide format, and then hand over to the speakers.

Each speaker gets:

• A rapid introduction slide: name, company, one-line story hook
• Their story slide: one visual that tells the whole thing
• Their lesson slide: one sentence takeaway

This is a compressed version of our usual twenty-five minute format. The three slides are still there, but the talk moves fast. Think lightning talk energy - and then we open it up for a proper Q&A with all three speakers on the panel together.

The running order

• Opening (5 mins)
• Crispin introduces the session, Story Time, and Leeds Digital Drinks. Sets the tone and explains the format.
  
  
• Speaker 1 (10 mins)
• Three slides. Introduction, story, lesson.
  
  
• Speaker 2 (10 mins)
• Three slides. Introduction, story, lesson.
  
  
• Speaker 3 (10 mins)
• Three slides. Introduction, story, lesson.
  
  
• Panel Q&A (25 mins)
• All three speakers on stage together. Crispin chairs. Open to the room.

What we're looking for in a speaker

Established founders and business leaders. People who've been building something long enough to have a real story - with a real lesson at the end of it.

The audience at Climb UK is exactly the kind of room where honest stories land well. These are people who are running businesses, dealing with the same pressures, and who will recognise the moments you describe.

The best speakers at Story Time aren't the most polished. They're the most honest.

Want to speak?

We're looking for three speakers for this session. If you're interested, fill in the short form below - tell us which story shape fits and give us a brief sense of what your story is.

We'll be in touch to discuss the session and help you shape your slides.

Expression of interest form: Submit your story idea Or get in touch directly: [email protected]

About Leeds Digital Drinks

Founded in 2016, Leeds Digital Drinks is a community for the tech, startup and creative people of Leeds. In 2026 we're celebrating our 10th anniversary. Story Time is our monthly speaker format - informal, honest, and always worth an hour of your Thursday.

More at leedsdigitaldrinks.com

Two SMEs at the same turnover can be worth wildly different amounts. One sells for 5x EBITDA, raises capital easily, and runs without keeping the founder up at night. The other sells for 1.5x, struggles to find investors, and grinds the founder down. Same sector. Same size. Vastly different outcomes.

The difference is rarely the product, the market, or even the team. It's a small set of financial and operating disciplines that quietly compound to multiply business value, fundability and scalability. In this panel, hosted by Daniella Wainwright (Fractional FD and Founder of Wainwright Consulting) and joined by a regional growth funder, a commercial law firm and a wealth specialist, we'll share what we see across hundreds of SME deals every year. You'll leave with a clear view of what creates value, what destroys it, and the disciplines you can start building this quarter.

Who should attend: 

Founders, leaders and operators running SMEs in the £1m to £10m turnover range, particularly those thinking seriously about scaling, raising, or building optionality. Especially relevant for leaders who already have decent management information but suspect there's more to extract from it.

Why it matters: 

Whether you ever sell or not, the same operating disciplines that make a business investable also make it more profitable, more scalable, and easier to run. This is the conversation founders rarely get to have in plain English with the people who actually price these businesses. No theory. No pitch decks. Just the patterns that separate the businesses worth more from the ones worth less.

Wondering whether AI is actually relevant to your business, or just a lot of hype? 

This session is designed for founders and business owners who want honest, practical answers. 

Your host, Charlotte Boundy, covers where AI delivers in day-to-day operations, what most small/medium businesses are missing, and how to find out where your biggest opportunities are to save time and money in your business.

The session includes a hands-on opportunity to experience a live automation that made one of her clients an additional £250k revenue in 3 months - can you afford to miss it..?

When the sessions wrap up, the conversations do not have to stop.

Drinks on the Square is the official after party gathering for Climb26 - a relaxed, open space where founders, investors, partners and delegates come together to unwind, reconnect and carry on the conversations that started during the day.

It is deliberately simple: good people, good energy, and the chance to turn introductions into real relationships in a more informal setting. Whether you are following up on a conversation, meeting someone new, or just taking a breather, this is where the evening naturally continues.

You might hear rumours of other parties happening around the city - and that is part of the fun of a growing festival. But Drinks on the Square is the place where everyone comes back together. It is the centre of gravity for the ClimbUK community, and where the event really comes to life after hours.

If you are already here, stay. If you are not sure what your evening plans are, this is the easiest and most valuable place to be.