This year CRL ran their first in-person Hackathon event where business and design students from Brunel University had the chance to join this year’s startup cohort team for two weeks and collaborate closely with the founders to help them test and develop their customer and commercial opportunities.

It is that time of year again, and hasn’t it come round quickly? As we introduce you to the cohort for Central Research Laboratory’s 2021 accelerator program, there are some similarities from last year, but also a number of exciting changes.

As we now know, this year’s CRL cohort is slightly different with a larger number of startups initially involved, and then after a six-week period, a hackathon and a pitch day, six will be chosen to continue on the accelerator programme. I got the chance to catch up with all 18 startups, to find out a little bit about the founders, the business, their big ideas and some of the challenges they have faced with their products and proof of concepts so far.

CRL have shortlisted 16 startups as potential participants for the CRL Accelerator programme. Over the past six weeks, the CRL team have been working with the group, supporting them to identify the biggest questions and assumptions that need to be understood before they could progress their business to the next stage.

With this year taking a slightly different format to previous programmes, the CRL 2021 cohort sponsored by Mouser Electronics was spilt into two phases. Phase one saw 20 startups take part for six weeks, work in depth with the team to learn where they are at, what they need help with, and where they want to take things. From here the startups got the chance to pitch to the CRL community, partners and investors, to compete for the final six positions which will find themselves in phase two developing their products and businesses further.

After the year 2020 brought us with all the disruption and uncertainty, 2021 was a fresh start for many and a time for change. That is exactly what the CRL and Mouser accelerator programme this year promised, a change and hope for the future.

As we approach Demo Day tomorrow (which you can still sign up for virtually here), we wanted to bring you a recap of the remaining of the six startups who made up the CRL and Mouser 2021 cohort.