GoDesk has signed an incubation agreement with Akcela Ventures, becoming the latest tech-enabled company to join our portfolio.
Through the Akcela programme, GoDesk will receive up to 18 months of hands-on incubation support: free desk space at Fuel Studios, weekly working sessions with the Akcela team, support with product-market fit, fundraising preparation, and access to our investor and partner network.
About GoDesk
GoDesk is building a tech-enabled product designed to improve how businesses operate day to day. The founders came to Akcela with a clear understanding of the problem they want to solve — the kind of deep domain knowledge that consistently produces the strongest companies in our portfolio.
What stood out during the selection process wasn't a polished pitch or a slick prototype. It was the founders' clarity about the market they're entering, the customers they're building for, and their willingness to challenge their own assumptions through structured customer discovery.
Why GoDesk joined Akcela
Most early-stage founders face the same set of challenges: turning a strong idea into a viable product, finding the right business model, navigating legal and financial structures they've never dealt with before, and eventually raising investment from people they've never met.
GoDesk's founders recognised that they could figure all of this out alone — eventually — or they could accelerate the process by joining a programme specifically designed to compress the learning curve. That's exactly what Akcela's incubation programme provides.
How Akcela's incubation model works
Akcela operates on an equity-for-services model. Founders pay nothing upfront — no fees, no rent, no retainers. Instead, Akcela takes a small shareholding in the company. That stake dilutes alongside future investment, meaning Akcela's incentives are fully aligned with the founder's: we only succeed when our companies succeed.
In practical terms, incubation includes:
- Free desk space at Fuel Studios in Norwich city centre — a genuine workspace alongside other founders at similar stages
- Weekly hands-on sessions with the Akcela team, covering product-market fit, business model development, go-to-market strategy, and everything else it takes to build a company from the ground up
- Fundraising support — financial modelling, pitch preparation, SEIS advance assurance guidance, and warm introductions to Anglia Capital Group and the wider angel investment community
- Legal foundations — working with legal partners to get share structures, IP, and contracts right from day one
- A founder community — access to a peer network of other founders who understand exactly what you're going through
The Akcela partners — James Adams, Peter Ballard, Tom Wood, and Kate Yarbo — have personally started, scaled, and exited companies. That includes Foolproof, a Norwich-founded UX agency that grew to over 200 people internationally before being acquired. When they give advice, it comes from experience.
Building the portfolio
Each company that joins the Akcela incubator strengthens the ecosystem around it. Portfolio companies share a workspace, attend the same community events, and support each other through the shared experience of building something from scratch. That peer network is one of the most valuable — and least advertised — benefits of incubation.
GoDesk joins a diverse portfolio spanning EdTech, gaming, security, SaaS, and more. The common thread isn't the sector — it's the approach: technology at the core, deep commitment from the founders, and a willingness to do the work. Across the portfolio, Akcela-incubated companies have raised over £2.2 million in investment and secured more than £435,000 in grant funding.
What's next
The first months of incubation focus on validation — ensuring that the product GoDesk is building is genuinely what customers need, not just what the founders assume they need. From there, the programme moves through business model development, fundraising preparation, and the structured milestones that take a company from early concept to investment readiness.
If you're building a tech-enabled company and want to learn more about how incubation works, apply to the programme or get in touch. You can also learn more about what a business incubator does or explore the Future Tech Programme as an entry point for earlier-stage founders.
