After gaining funding on a TV show, a UK company is bringing wifi to marinas
The whole ‘David and Goliath’ story never seems to tire. Everyone loves it when the underdog succeeds. A popular television programme in the UK really capitalises on this very human phenomena, even though it wasn’t part of the initial show, and an innovative marine services company has certainly made the most of the opportunity.
BBC2’s Dragon’s Den sees a panel of four very wealthy self-made businessmen and women sit as a ‘judging panel’ for wannabe entrepreneurs to pitch their business ideas to, in the hope of gaining juicy funding and a peak in the experts contact book.
One such ‘David’ was Dominic Killinger, MD of Marlow-based marine innovations business Square Mile. Dominic was keen to secure additional funding to further develop his wireless internet service provider offer that allows sailors and marine visitors to gain wifi broadband on board their ships.
A keen sailor, Killinger is passionate about delivering wifi to marinas across the UK and his pitch highlighted the business potential to the Dragons. Of course, the Dragons are seemingly not at all concerned with what actual businesses they invest in – they just want to know that they’re going to get far more money out than they put in – but for Killinger, the possibility of bringing a business he believes in to a wider audience was priceless.
Having gained that all-important funding from the Dragons, who quickly saw the money-making potential of what is a huge untapped market (especially as people who sail often have a few quid knocking about and need to stay in touch with valuable business deals), Killinger has been able to step up his plans for expanding the brand across Europe’s most prestigious marinas.
Square Mile is also developing a sailing information portal that gives facts and reports on tidal news, weather updates and technology innovations. It seems that this underdog is building quite an empire!