A ‘Secret Millionaire’ and BBC Dragon and the former CEO of the world’s most successful processor company will both speak at the Slush’D 24 start-up conference in Liverpool. Tony McDonough reports

Liverpool will see the return of the Slush’D start-up conference this autumn and has revealed its headline speakers.

Local digital entrepreneur Jonny Clark helped bring Liverpool Slush’D to Stanhope Street, in the city’s Baltic Triangle, for the first time in September 2023. The event was already a sell-put two weeks before with 300 people attending.

Slush was founded by a group of students in Helsinki 15 years ago as a grassroots meetup for early-stage tech founders. It has been called a “celebration of entrepreneurial grit”.

Since then it has evolved to become a major annual event, attracting the biggest names in the start-up and investment community.

Organisers say the Slush model of fostering a tight-knit community of innovators and investors, and tackling the bottlenecks that hinder local start-ups from reaching their full potential has led to “exponential economic gains” for Helsinki.

Slush’D 24 will take place in Liverpool on Thursday September 19, from 9am to 11pm at Content in Stanhope Street It brings together early-stage tech founders, investors and supporting professional services under one roof.

Headline speaker this year is Piers Linney, an entrepreneur and investor and best known as former Dragon on BBC’s Dragons’ Den and from Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire. 

Piers has a professional background as a qualified lawyer specialising in venture capital and in M&A investment banking at Credit Suisse and was a non-executive director of the UK Government’s development bank British Business Bank during the roll out of the £90bn COVID-19 business support loan schemes.

He is also the co-founder of Implement AI, which supports businesses of all sizes to understand and implement managed AI agents to augment human resources.

And Piers is chairman and co-founder of Atherton Bikes, a world-leading 3D printed mountain bike manufacturer that won 1st and 2nd place in the 2023 World Championships.

Another speaker is Sir Robin Saxby who was the founding chief executive of ARM Holdings (late 1990) with 12 engineers spun out of Acorn and £1.75m from Apple and VLSI Technology. 

The people in the company created the most popular microprocessor on our planet. Today, ARM devices are used in just about every electronic device, including mobile phones, IPads, cars and TVs.

Since retiring from ARM in 2007, Robin has been an Angel Investor and worked with Universities including Liverpool where he’s a visiting professor. He sits on the Advisory Board of Amadeus Venture Capital.

Jonny Clark said: “This day is structured in such a way that every session has relevance to different phases of a startup’s lifecycle.

“If you’re doing deep tech or serious product development you’re going to want to hear from Professor Sir Robin Saxby, who has scaled one of the most important companies on the planet.

“If you’re thinking about pitching to a VC or undertaking some M&A, you’re going to want to hear from Piers Linney. If you want to get your startup in the headlines then you’ll want to hear tips from the journalists who write stories about entrepreneurs and tech.

“Founders will learn from DEI expert Ashanti Bentil-Dhue on how to gain outstanding competitive advantage by building diverse teams and great cultures.

“And we will be offered a sneak peek into salient data about UK startups trends from Beauhurst, the private UK company database.”

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Baltic Ventures, the Gold Sponsor of Liverpool Slush’D 2024, will be unveiling its ACCELERATOR 2024 cohort live at the event – and earlier in the day, a selection of top up-and-coming startups will be pitching to investors in the audience, facilitated by Gateway Angels.

Slush’D 2024 will be supported by Baltic Ventures, Marks and Clark, LCR Combined Authority, DTM Legal, VeUP, Sedulo and Gateway Angels.

Click here for more information or click here to buy tickets.