Grown in Cheltenham

Cheltenham startups: fast-track your business with six months of tailored support.

HELPING CHELTENHAM COMPANIES GROW

From building a customer roadmap to making your first hire, supporting your business through times of change or simply advice on where to go next.

Apply for Grown in Cheltenham and we’ll create a custom plan to support your goals.

To apply, your business must be registered in the Cheltenham District and have a focus on creating local impact and/or regional economic growth potential.

Successful businesses will be in the expert hands of Hub8 by Plexal’s innovation team who work with government departments, enterprises and the most exciting startups in the UK. And the business experts at The Growth Hub, who have collectively supported over 14,000 Gloucestershire businesses to realise their potential and maximise their growth.

Benefits

Tailored programme

One-to-one support from an experienced mentor

Connect with industry experts

Expand your network

Sales and growth

Six-month workspace membership at Hub8 and Plexal, Stratford

Access to our regular member events at Hub8 and Plexal Stratford

Meet the cohort

Alice Violet

Alice Violet, Founder and Creative Director of Alice Violet Creative
Alice Violet Creative is a content marketing agency specialising in complex brands. With a unique luxury and cyber security background, Founder Alice combines her expertise to position tech and cyber brands as the gold standard of their industry through strategic digital storytelling.

Alice is passionate about making cyber security accessible and engaging, demonstrated with her Cyber Made Human podcast where she chats with industry leaders about everything from quantum computing to spyware in simple language. She joined Grown in Cheltenham to gain support during Alice Violet Creative’s growth phase, seeking guidance to maintain quality while scaling her in-house team and client base.

Growm

James Campbell, Co-founder and CEO of Growm
Growm is making ecommerce immersive with advanced 3D and augmented reality solutions. The business enhances brand sales by creating lifelike 3D, virtual and augmented experiences for customers that boost buyer confidence and engagement – bridging the gap between physical and online shopping.

Starting his career at McLaren Automotive before progressing to other engineering roles at the likes of Dyson, Growm CEO James joined the Grown in Cheltenham programme to access a unique community of mentors and tech companies. He hopes to gain a focused, personalised approach to business growth and is looking for support in go-to-market strategies and growth plans while building connections alongside exploring funding options.

Nomadic UK

Amy Holley-Cribbin, Co-founder of Nomadic UK
Amy Holley-Cribbin is the co-founder of Nomadic UK, a creative and dynamic video production agency based in Cheltenham. She founded the company in May 2017 alongside her husband and business partner, Tom Cribbin, as she completed her PhD studies in novel-to-stage adaptation theory and Victorian literature.

Nomadic UK specialises in high-quality visual storytelling, offering bespoke video production services for a wide range of industries, helping brands communicate their stories with clarity and impact. As proud Cheltenham locals, we’re thrilled to join Grown In Cheltenham, leveraging its central location and thriving tech scene to show that great video content doesn’t require going to London. With their support, we aim to help local brands achieve real results through impactful videos while growing our business

Zest Intelligence

Ollie Johnston, Adam Westrope, Rebekka Bishop and Andy Fellowes, Co-founders at Zest Intelligence
Zest Intelligence offers specialist management consultancy services to sensitive and highly regulated industries. It does this by implementing data management, digital transformations and cloud strategies, incorporating solutions ranging from AI to data analytics and more.

Established in 2024 by entrepreneurs with over 50 years combined with HMG, the team unites industry talent in an environment empowering everyone to pursue their life goals, while exploring and innovating to reach their full potential. Having acted as mentors for other innovation initiatives in the past, the directors desire support as founders and hope to learn from industry experts and best practice insights as they connect with like-minded entrepreneurs.

THIS IS FOR YOU IF…

Your business is registered in the Cheltenham district and can demonstrate at least one of the below criteria:

That your work creates local impact (or has the potential to cause it)
That your work has the potential to generate regional economic growth
You have a barrier that’s stopping you achieve your growth goals

APPLICATIONS CLOSED

The programme is currently underway with our first cohort of Cheltenham businesses.
Stay tuned for updates on future opportunities.