Tesco’s TJam. Pizza & pitching with the nation’s finest grocer.

Investing in, or running a tech start-up? Here is a great opportunity to make contact with the nice people in the innovation and mobile teams at Tesco, who will be running a TJAM in the City of London on the 22 August from 5:30pm – 8:30pm.

A what? ‘TJAM’- (T for Tesco and T for Technology). The idea of this event is to ‘jam’ together start-ups and senior Tesco technologists for an evening of food, drink, and tech-speed-dating!

Here’s what Tesco have to say (most importantly note that they need an application by COP Tuesday 13th August):

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‘At Tesco we talk about ‘making moments matter’ for customers, and we firmly believe that the latest ideas and innovations could help us achieve this. We already work with some great (mostly large) suppliers of exceptional technology which we use in abundance. What we don’t want to miss is the equally valuable set of ideas coming out of great British start-ups who are passionate about their product and are looking for research, trialling, investment and/or licensing opportunities with someone like us at Tesco.

You know and have probably shopped at Tesco before, whether in-store or online. Do you know start-ups that you think could ‘make moments matter’ for you as our customer if only we deployed their product or service? We’ll be as interested in listening to start-ups who are just beginning development of their idea as much as those who have a product ready. We’re equally excited to hear about products coming ‘next, soon, or later’.

We have a total of twelve spaces available (we’re limiting numbers only because we wish to have quality time with each start-up) and the theme of this T-Jam is simply ‘Come and Inspire Us!’.

So that ideas are protected and both sides can talk candidly about ideas and requirements, Non-Disclosure Agreements will be signed between Tesco and every start-up that takes part. After all we hope that this is the beginning of some great business relationships.

To make sure start-ups pitch only to Tesco colleagues and won’t get to talk about each others’ work if they don’t wish to do so, we’ll be running a ‘tech-speed-dating’ format, giving you the chance to have an informal 5 minute “1:1” with groups of Tesco technologists, representing different business focus of innovation or mobile development. Think of the pitch as conversation where questions can be asked, feedback given, the idea demonstrated, and next steps (if any) agreed

After the ‘speed-date’ section, we can all chat informally in self-forming groups for the next hour while we eat & drink, and then finish up by announcing the next steps we have agreed with each of the start-ups. We want them to know we’re serious about working with them if we think their product could fit.

Start-ups will be welcome to bring laptops and other portable devices. We’ll have wifi and mains power available, as well as plenty of meat and veggie pizzas, beer & cider, and soft drinks.

I hope you are interested in (and maybe intrigued by) by this event. If you are interested, please could you respond to nick.lansley@uk.tesco.com by 5pm on Tuesday 13 August (a week’s time) with a recommendation of any start-ups you would like us to invite. Please include a short summary and a link to their website. We’ll get back in touch with you by Friday 16 August with a formal invite for each accepted start-up and we’ll announce the venue with the formal invitation.

Best regards

Nick Lansley’

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There you have it – we think Nick deserves to be deluged with quality applications from quality businesses so please prove us right!

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