Plexal

👏 2025 was a fulfilling year for Plexal, during which we grew our team by 35 people who joined our shared mission. 🎉 We've entered 2026 ready to take our efforts to the next level and we’d love you to reflect on our milestone moments of 2025 with us, which will give you a flavour of the opportunities you can be a part of this year! 📜 Visit the link in our bio for the full rundown.

Building on our foundation for driving innovation and growth across the UK and aligned to the UK Government’s mission to move the economy forward, we’re pleased to cut the ribbon on our new initiative, Growth Partnership! ✂🎀️ Here’s what you need to know: 🧭 Growth Partnership provides bespoke guidance for SME scaling milestones such as fundraising, customer acquisition and product development. 📏 We’ll measure where the business is on their scaling journey, learn key milestones and explore priorities ahead, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with you. 🤝 Delivering always-on support for startups, scaleups and SMEs – the 99.8% of UK companies – acting as an extension of your team. 🧱 This follows our work with over 1,200 businesses, contributing £731m to the UK economy and generating 9,400 jobs. You can read all about it and get involved through the Linktree in our bio 📰 Watch on for a Growth Partnership walkthrough from our CEO Andrew Roughan 📼

Meet our May member of the month: Emmanuel Lawal, Founder of intotheopen. ✨ Here’s what makes Emmanuel stand out: 🔮 Performance prediction: intotheopen helps customers know exactly how their content will perform before it reaches audiences, powered by AI. 📊 Insights: every campaign feeds the intotheopen model, so every decision gets sharper over time. 🤝 Community: outside of intotheopen, Emmanuel is a runner, writer, content creator and recently launched BUILDING BLACK, a community supporting Black founders. Visit @intotheopen.ai website to learn more about its work: intotheopen.ai

We kicked off April with news that PA Consulting and Plexal are the private sector delivery partners for the @UKhomeoffice 's Accelerated Capability Environment (ACE) 📰 🔗 /government/news/appointment-of-new-private-sector-partner) 📖 Now, we’ve closed out the month by turning the page onto The Next Chapter of this story. Last night on the South Bank, we convened a cross-section of stakeholders from government to officially press reset and launch ACE anew. ACE has big ambitions to scale and will sit at the heart of mission-driven innovation in government. It’ll be the place government turns to when it has the toughest problems to solve – known not just for good ideas, but for delivery, credibility and real‑world impact. Supporting our partner PA Consulting to deliver on this vision is a privilege and we’re excited to be providing unrivalled access to a startup and SME innovation ecosystem to deliver on this mission. As our launch event delivered views across London landmarks, all teeming with citizens from across the UK (and beyond), it reinforced ACE’s reason for being – to ensure public safety and security. Saj Huq, CEO at Plexal, said: “At Plexal, we focus on helping government solve its missions by bringing together the right ecosystems – aligning academia, industry, startups and investors. Since our first engagement with ACE in 2019, it’s been clear initiatives like this are essential for the UK to succeed and we’re proud to be part of the private sector partnership with the Home Office and PA. “ACE must continue to evolve – not for change’s sake, but because the challenges facing the country are more complex, cross‑cutting and moving at greater pace. Looking ahead, our priority is to accelerate delivery, improve efficiency, refresh the community in line with future government needs and develop new models of engagement and partnership. “By embracing experimentation, data and AI and strengthening our regional presence, we can take the ACE offer closer to those who need it – rooted in co‑creation to deliver real impact for society.”

🧑‍💻 Our latest Coworking Week, during which we open the doors to Plexal HQ to offer innovators free workspace access, business insights and lifestyle experiences, came to a close on Friday last week – and what a week it was! From practical workshops to wellbeing sessions, pop-up food stalls and an evening of pizza and games, five days at our Stratford headquarters reinforced just how much energy and possibility exists in the Plexal community and why you should be a permanent part of it. 🙌 This edition of Coworking Week was our most popular to date, with a record number of registrants and attendees across the five days. That's a reflection of the appetite out there among entrepreneurs, startups, scaleups, creatives and freelancers for community, support and a genuinely innovative space to work. ✍️ Read the full recap here: /news/ (🔗 link in bio)

⏰ Spaces for Coworking Week at Plexal are filling up, but there’s still time to join! From Monday 13th April to Friday 17th April, we’re opening the doors to our Stratford headquarters for a full week of free coworking, events and business support. If you haven’t joined Coworking Week before, this is your chance to: 🧑‍💻Try our innovation workspace for free 🔌 Connect with founders, startups and scaleups 🤝 Take part in a packed programme of networking, wellbeing and mentoring sessions Alongside free workspace access, we’re hosting three practical workshops led by our Growth Partnership team, designed to help businesses sharpen their growth strategy: 🔹 Channel partnerships: learn how to identify and build partnerships that unlock new routes to market. 🔹 Customer acquisition: practical tools to help you attract, convert and retain the right customers. 🔹 Value proposition: clarify how you talk about your product or service so customers instantly understand its value. Whether you’re refining your messaging, exploring new growth channels or simply looking for a productive change of scene, Coworking Week is a great way to experience the Plexal community first hand. Spaces are limited and filling up fast. 👉 Register for free here (or follow the link in our bio): /coworking-week/ 📍Coworking Week is also running at our partner site @Hub8and.co in Cheltenham, if that location suits you and your business better.

Meet our April member of the month: Glenn Perera, Founder of Perera Insights. ✨ Here’s what makes Glenn stand out: 📊 Customer insight: Glenn helps businesses de‑risk big investments by reading customer signals early, ensuring money and resources are committed with confidence, not guesswork. 🧠 Independent thinking: working independently across advertising, media, fintech and B2B software, he brings cross-sector perspective and clarity to complex commercial decisions. 🎾 Creativity: whether deep into padel, tracking down great restaurants or experimenting with content creation on Instagram, Glenn brings curiosity and creativity alongside strategic rigour. Visit the Perera Insights website to learn more about Glenn's work: .

Last Friday, we kicked off the KXSB Agents & Robotics HackXelerator (AR26) in London at @plexalcity The event brought together builders, researchers, and partners including Vultr, NVIDIA, University of West London, and TwelveLabs. Over the coming weeks, participants worldwide will contribute across four core missions: • Digital Agents & Multi-Agent Systems • Autonomous Systems & Embodied AI • Human–Robot Interaction & Social Robotics • Ethics, Agency & Societal Impact A big thank you to our speakers and panelists, Zeahi Tang, Armelle Madelin, Kevin Cochrane, Dmitry Pozdniakov, and to our moderator Stephanie Prentice. The journey continues, with the finale taking place in Berlin on April 17. Photos from the London kickoff are available via the link in bio. #hackathon #AI #robotics

Meet Alex Munday, Growth Partner at Plexal. Alex brings first-hand insight into the realities of product development, customer acquisition and scaling, having built and launched his own business end-to-end. His experience spans cyber security, digital health, emerging technologies and agricultural technology with a background in commercial strategy and sales. Growth Partnership is providing startups, SMEs and scaleups with 1:1 tailored guidance to help companies unlock peak potential faster than any other support products on the market. 🔗 Learn more about Growth Partnership and meet the rest of the team using the link in the bio.

⚖️ We recently co-hosted the Rule of Law: Powering business success, investment and innovation event at Plexal HQ with the @attorneygeneralsoffice to discuss how the rule of law underpins growth for startups and scaleups. “When we talk about innovation and growth, we often focus on the UK’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, research base, talent and academic institutions,” began Plexal CEO Saj Huq, opening the event. “But really, trust in the rule of law is beneath all our success in the UK and globally.” 🇬🇧 Taking to the stage to deliver his keynote, Attorney General Richard Hermer discussed the UK as an environment for entrepreneurship, the Attorney General declared: “If the legal foundations are strong, innovation doesn’t just survive – it grows. Fast. And that’s exactly the environment the government wants to support. The rule of law makes us one of the finest jurisdictions in the world for everyone to grow ideas, protect intellectual property and create world-class businesses. “This government’s ambition is to build world leading innovation corridors across the UK – places where ideas, talent and investment come together, where businesses can grow. My message to you is the next great UK global company might not start in a traditional boardroom – it may start in student flat, a shared workspace or here. “What makes a difference is if people feel confident enough to take that first step. And the UK’s rule of law tradition has been giving entrepreneurs that confidence for a century. The job of the government is to make sure that continues. If you have an idea, even a small one, don’t dismiss it. We want you to be part of that Great British success story. This government is behind you and so is our rule of law heritage. Go for gold.”

🌐 Last week, Plexal hosted Cyber Runway Live on behalf of @scitechgovuk at our HQ on the @hereeast campus, @queenelizabetholympicpark . ✈️ Cyber Runway, the largest cyber accelerator in the UK, returned for its fifth edition in September 2025 as part of the Cyber Growth Action Plan. Funded by DSIT and delivered by Plexal, the overall goal of our programme is to drive innovation, create high-quality jobs and secure long-term economic resilience. 📡 This iteration of Cyber Runway evolved from its traditional streams, with new offerings designed to drive scaling, regional expansion, net zero innovation and critical national infrastructure resilience. 🎓 Leaders from all treams – Grow, Scale X, Ignite, CNI, NW Net Zero –and wider ecosystem came together for Cyber Runway Live, which marks their programme graduation. Our cohorts celebrated their collective progress, accomplishments and learnings from the past few months. 📸 We’ve got plenty more to share from the big day soon but, for now, you can relive the day with a photo pick and mix. Congratulations everyone! 🎉

Meet Mina Begum, Growth Partner at Plexal. She brings outside-in thinking to pressure-test your assumptions and ask the uncomfortable questions to help your team focus on the challenges that’ll move the needle. Alongside this approach, Mina understands founders are juggling product, customers, teams, fundraising and day-to-day tasks, which makes it hard to step back and see what’s blocking growth. Growth Partnership is providing startups, SMEs and scaleups with 1:1 tailored guidance to help companies unlock peak potential faster than any other support products on the market. 🔗 Learn more about Growth Partnership and meet the rest of the team using the link in the bio.