The S4 programme offers a small group of students 1-1 mentoring support from Savvy and the chance to pitch for up to £5,000 of grant funding and a visit to the Savvy headquarters in Silicon Valley, US.

Exeter alumni and entrepreneur offers students international business acceleration opportunity

Since finishing his studies at the University of Exeter in 2015, Matt Morley has pursued his ambitions in entrepreneurship. He joined the Student Startup Team as a Student Entrepreneur in Residence that same year, providing start up support to students. He also launched Tickbox, the first website in the UK to have the details of all candidates in all constituencies in the UK, helping users decide how to vote. Tickbox attracted over 300,000 unique users and 2.5 M unique page requests. Since Tickbox, Matt has led a number of similar digital democracy projects for the EU Referendum and the 2017 General Election creating products which have been used by over 5.2M people in 3 years.

In summer 2018 Matt began his latest business venture, Savvy, an online business tool which gives businesses building blocks to create their own internal tools, with a similar model to those devised for deciding who to vote for in elections. The business is based in Silicon Valley, US, and has raised significant private investment.

This has resulted in the design of the S4 programme – a unique opportunity which Matt and the Savvy team are offering to budding student entrepreneurs. The S4 programme offers a small group of students 1-1 mentoring support from Savvy and the chance to pitch for up to £5,000 of grant funding and a visit to the Savvy headquarters in Silicon Valley, US.

The S4 programme will begin in February 2020 with regular mentoring and interaction with the Savvy team in order to develop a business venture, alongside catch ups and workshops led by the Student Startup team. In June 2020 students will be invited to pitch for funding and/or to meet the Savvy team in America.

We are looking for a small group of 5-6 students to participate in the S4 programme. To apply, students will be invited to deliver a 5-minute pitch to a panel which will be followed by 10 minutes of Q&A. Presentations should focus on the opportunity their business provides, why the business is viable and why/how you would benefit from the programme.

Applications via eventbrite are open until 26th of January. For more information please contact: studentstartups@exeter.ac.uk

Date: 10 December 2019