This June, we welcomed six ingenious hardware innovators to join our signature six-month CRL Accelerator programme at Central Research Laboratory in West London. The programme kicked off with a customer discovery module, teaching the founders to identify and understand their customers. The entrepreneurs then dove deeper into business modelling and startup funding.  

In September, cohort 9 started preparing their products for manufacture. Founders learnt how to find, assess and successfully engage with manufacturers: from evaluating suppliers to negotiating terms, prototyping their product for manufacture and creating a solid production timeline.  

As part of the module, the cohort and the CRL team headed north to meet two manufacturing factories – Protolabs and Studio 29 Factory 31. Not only did the founders go on tours to explore their manufacturing facilities, but they also built a strong network of contacts that will fast-track manufacturing journeys in the near future.