We don’t just innovate we Innovate UK

Back in 2022, we were honoured to be awarded the Innovate UK Smart Grant. This is a UK Government backed grant awarded to companies that are developing leading edge technology that will benefit the UK economy. Securing this funding has meant that we have been able to take time to further develop our innovative tool for SMCR compliance management.

The grant process is extremely competitive, with 2,000 applicants applying and only a handful being selected, so to be awarded this grant feels like a huge achievement for PeopleClear. As recommended, we used an external specialist to help write our bid for the grant. The written bid involves a series of in depth questions which covered all aspects of the development plan, including detailed research of the market place, project plans, and timetables, as well as a commercialisation plan. We are proud that the bid was successful in conveying how PeopleClear SMCR can simplify a complex SMCR process for organisations and the impact this can have for financial firms.

Receiving this grant has enabled us to work with partner firm, Squirro, to begin harnessing the benefit of their Insights Engine which uses AI and machine learning. This enables us to monitor the evolving business and regulatory environment and recommend appropriate actions to maintain SMCR compliance in real time. We’ve also been able to accelerate our development roadmap to enhance our RegTech SaaS tool for SMCR.

From receiving the grant, the programme ran for 18 months and involved regular check ins and monitoring from Innovate UK. This provided a great opportunity for us to consistently reflect and review our own progress over time, allowing us to adapt when necessary to ensure we can continue to provide an intuitive, secure, and easy-to-use system.

The grant provided 70% of the costs needed and we provided the remaining 30%. Having this funding has allowed us to move more quickly to develop our technology, providing time and space to review and improve where necessary supported by financial contributions.

We are so grateful for the support we have received from Innovate UK and the opportunity it provided to enhance the capability of PeopleClear SMCR. We are now excited to relaunch PeopleClear SMCR and continue to support businesses with the process of managing their SMCR.

If you would like more information on our RegTech solution or would like to know how we can help you, please get in touch.