FINDING + PROMOTING
RAIL'S NEXT SUPPLIERS
Start Up Rail
Start Up Rail is our programme to discover new start up and small suppliers across the UK.
We have identified from engagement with larger rail suppliers that there is a shortage of start up & digital companies throughout the UK ready to supply into the rail sector.
Our Start Up Rail programme offers regional events hosted in tech hubs to stimulate the development of rail-based start-up communities.
Start Up Rail is how the Rail Innovation Group discovers new digital, data, and software suppliers for the rail industry, and connects them with the customers who need them.
We work both ways. When rail clients ask us for a supplier with a particular capability, we make the introduction. When a promising new supplier comes onto our radar, we point them to the rail organisations they should be talking to. Supplier Challenges and innovation funding collaborations are the larger-scale versions of this work.
How Start Up Rail works
Introductions. When rail clients need a particular capability, they come to us, and we point them to a supplier in our network. We work the other way too, telling new suppliers which rail organisations they should be approaching.
Supplier Challenges. We run formatted pitch days in partnership with corporate clients. The client sets one or more live operational briefs. Suppliers pitch their solutions against those briefs. The client gets a pipeline of candidates and the suppliers get direct access to a real customer.
Innovation funding. Innovate UK's First of a Kind (FOAK) competition awards grant funding to suppliers developing solutions to specific rail challenges. Applicants are required to include an integration partner from the rail industry. We help members find one, and broker the relationship.
“The Rail Innovation Group’s Start Up Rail programme will help to unleash the potential of UK tech communities to meet national challenges and promote global opportunities for even the newest UK businesses.”
UK Minister for Business and Industry
The scheme is targeted at finding rail’s next generation of suppliers, we have to look in the most diverse places & tech clusters.
“As the founder of a start up company in Bristol, the Start Up Rail programme has been invaluable to us in discovering the scale of routes into the rail sector. Many we’d never have known about. The national tour will have a definite impact on the tech communities given the opportunity to engage with the rail market from their own locations.”
Emily Kent, Founder, One Big Circle
The Rail Innovation Group saw that there was a need to create a larger pool of new diverse types of suppliers to help meet rail’s challenges. We created Start Up Rail to seek out new tech companies and show them some of the exciting opportunities in the rail supply chain. Start Up Rail is a national programme, building an engaged tech community through a series of regional events designed to discover innovative suppliers and products under development, whether or not they are intended for the rail sector.
The tech communities we attract are not part of traditional rail supply chain communities, and so by providing an introduction to the opportunities in rail, we nurture these new suppliers into the rail space creating new ideas and broadening the talent pool.
Success of the Start Up Rail scheme will see the creation a self-sustaining flow of new start up talent entering into the rail sector, inspired by the success of their peers.
Find out how the programme aligns with the Rail Sector Strategy & government targets to ensure 33% of public spending goes to SME. Download our info pack here or contact us for more information.