The Technology Strategy Board, Tech City UK & Cambridge Wireless, to invest up to £1m to support micro, small and medium-sized businesses working on the Internet of Things (IoT).

The Technology Strategy Board, with Tech City UK Ltd and Cambridge Wireless, are to invest up to £1m to support micro, small and medium-sized businesses working on the Internet of Things (IoT). This competition will support innovative research projects centred in and around the clusters in Cambridge (equipment and communications) and London (software and services).

This competition aims to stimulate these hotspots of IoT industries by enabling companies to move towards commercial success. We want to draw investment and people into the areas and to encourage networking and collaboration to strengthen the clusters.

We are looking for projects that:

may be too risky for companies to take forward without support
may take companies into new innovative areas
the majority of activities are carried out in Cambridge and/or London.
We will fund up to 60% of eligible costs for industrial research projects, with individual grants of up to £150k and estimated project sizes ranging between £50k and £250k. Projects can last up to 12 months and should be led by companies that are likely to be in the early stages of development.

An integral part of Launchpad is the offer of support to help applicants to raise additional new external finance that we expect will be needed to fully fund the project and its subsequent commercialisation. In addition to receiving project funding, successful applicants will participate in a programme of business support and growth activities that will run in parallel to projects in conjunction with partners including John Lewis, EE,Unilever, Seedcamp and Redgate.

The competition opens for applicants on 16 June 2014. The deadline for video submissions is at noon on 3 September 2014.

A briefing event will be held in Cambridge on 8 July 2014 and in London on 21 July 2014.