Indielab, the annual business-growth accelerator for independent TV production companies, has announced the 16 participants for its 2019 programme.
This year’s cohort were selected via an application process, in which Indielab worked with UK commissioners to identify production companies that demonstrate “exceptional creative excellence and potential.”
The selected participants are: Afro-Mic Productions, Air TV, Appeal TV, Chatterbox Media, Chalkboard TV, Curious Films, Loud Minds, Mam Tor Productions, Marble Films, Minnow Films, Proper Content, Red and Black Films, Rockerdale Studios, ScreenDog Productions, Tigerlily Productions and Yeti Media.
More than half of the indies selected to join the 2019 programme have their full-time headquarters outside of London and half are owned by BAME and/or female founders.
This year, the BBC has increased its support to become a full sponsor of the programme. Channel 4 is also renewing its commitment to the initiative, investing specifically from its Growth Fund, Creative Diversity and Nations and Regions departments.
Andrew Eastel, co-founder and creative director of Middlechild Productions and a participant in the 2018 Indielab Accelerator, said: “Indielab has provided Middlechild with a whole new way of envisaging our future — one that will help us make more strategically minded decisions. We would wholeheartedly recommend the programme to all indies with ambition to scale.”
Victoria Powell, founder and CEO of Indielab, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to have such an excellent and diverse cohort again this year. In a TV landscape transforming at great speed, competitiveness, talent and resilience have never been more important for indies. It was to help sustain and nurture the UK’s indie community — wherever they are based, and whatever the gender or ethnicity of their founders — that Indielab Accelerator was launched. We are very grateful to our sponsors for supporting us in our mission to support a vibrant and successful UK Indie sector that reflects and represents the UK in the 21st century.”
The 2019 Indielab Accelerator is again be being supported by the Mayor of London’s office through Film London. The BBC, Channel 4 and Film London join Indielab’s returning sponsors along with independent distributor Banijay Rights, Barclays, law firm Harbottle & Lewis, media-investment specialist Ingenious, Sony Pictures Television and media accounting and tax consultants Ecovis Wingrave Yeats and Nyman Libson Paul.
The Indielab Accelerator programme provides its participants with specialist consultancy from 50-plus industry leaders. As a result of the 2018 programme’s investment-readiness process, Greenacre Films recently announced a first-look deal with Banijay Rights. Other deals to have come out of last year’s scheme include an investment by all3media in Bullion Productions, which specialises in TV and branded content. In 2017, Indielab Accelerator helped to guide three companies — Antidote Productions, Midnight Oil Pictures and Awesome Media & Investment — into investment and first-look distribution deals.
The 2019 Indielab Accelerator runs from now to the end of May.
Staff Reporter
Share this story
