We're delighted to welcome Peter Ballard to Akcela as a Partner.
Peter co-founded Foolproof in Norwich in 2002 and grew it into a 200+ person international UX design agency before a successful sale in 2016. Since then, he's been an active angel investor in the Norwich startup ecosystem, backing early-stage companies and supporting the next generation of founders.
The Foolproof story
Foolproof is one of Norwich's most significant startup success stories — and it's directly relevant to every founder in the Akcela portfolio.
Peter and Tom Wood started Foolproof in a Norwich office with a small team and a clear thesis: that user experience design would become central to how businesses compete. Over nearly two decades, they grew the company from that initial premise into an international agency with offices in Norwich, London, and beyond, employing over 200 people and serving clients across finance, retail, government, and technology.
The company was acquired in 2016, completing a journey that took Foolproof from a Norwich startup to a globally recognised UX agency. That exit makes Peter and Tom among a very small number of people in the East of England who have personally built, scaled, and sold a company of that size — from this region, without relocating.
For Akcela's portfolio companies, Peter's experience isn't theoretical. He's navigated the specific challenges that Norwich-based founders face: building a team outside London, attracting investment to a regional company, managing international growth from a Norfolk base, and executing an exit that delivered real returns. When he sits down with a founder in the incubator, the conversation starts from a place of shared experience.
What Peter brings to Akcela
Peter's experience spans the full lifecycle of building a company — from starting in a Norwich office with a handful of people to managing international offices and navigating a complex exit.
At Akcela, Peter works directly with portfolio companies on the challenges that matter most in the early stages: product strategy, team building, investor relations, and the practical realities of scaling a business from a small base. He's also an active angel investor, which gives him a dual perspective — founder and investor — that's invaluable for companies as they prepare to raise through SEIS and Anglia Capital Group.
His specific areas of focus include helping founders think about long-term company building rather than just short-term milestones. Building a company that's worth acquiring — or worth running for decades — requires different thinking from building something that merely survives its first year. Peter brings that longer-term lens.
A founder-led incubator
Akcela's founding principle is that founders deserve support from people who've actually done it. Peter has done it — at scale, from Norwich, over nearly two decades. His addition to the team significantly strengthens the depth of experience available to every company in the incubator.
Peter joins James Adams, Tom Wood, and Kate Yarbo in the Akcela partnership. Together, the team has collectively started, scaled, and sold companies across EdTech, UX design, healthcare, and more. That's not something you can replicate with consultants or advisers. It's lived experience — and it's what makes structured incubation different from generic business support.
If you want to work with the Akcela team, apply to the incubation programme or get in touch. You can also learn more about what a business incubator does or explore the Future Tech Programme as a starting point.
Welcome, Peter.
