Sir Richard Branson relaunches pitching competition for entrepreneurs

Sir Richard Branson has relaunched VOOM, a competition that gives entrepreneurs the chance to pitch ideas and win cash prizes.

Entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to pitch ideas to a panel of experts, including Branson. Six businesses will be selected as winners and will share over £1 million in prizes.

Valuable

The competition, which was previously called Pitch to Rich, has been running for five years and is the “biggest, most exciting and most valuable” pitching competition in the UK and Ireland.

For this year’s competition, Virgin Media Business will be working with LinkedIn to recruit business professionals who can help judge the competition. The company is currently searching for 12 business experts that have “a range of skills and experience.”

The competition will run over 14 weeks and will include a “29-hour Pitchathon”, which Virgin Media Business said is a World Record attempt. Businesses will also have the chance to take part in face-to-face workshops.

Entrants can choose from a “Start-up” or “Grow” category, selecting the one that they feel applies most to their business.

Awareness

Virgin Media is giving businesses the opportunity to run a crowdfunding campaign in addition to entering the competition and raising awareness of their business.

In addition to winning a cash prize, successful businesses will receive financial advice, mentoring, a broadband and telecoms package, social and PR support, and more.

Last year’s winners of VOOM included self-service currency machine Fourex, hologram specialist Kino-Mo, and parking app JustPark. The businesses were selected after pitching their ideas to Branson and entrepreneurs Jo Malone and David Gandy.