Moonshot Academy, the growth accelerator which launched in July 2017 has announced the appointment of two new directors, bringing marketing and financial expertise to the company.

Sharon Mars, a former company director at Big Partnership, Scotland’s largest marketing and communications agency, and Gus Sekhon, who was previously head of European inflation at RBS Group, have joined the leadership team.

Mars joins Moonshot as a co-founder and head of marketing, working on the strategic direction of Moonshot as well as with individual founders in need of marketing support. Recruited by Big Partnership as a graduate intern in 2009, Sharon joined the company’s board in 2014 and spent three years establishing the company’s operation in North West England.

Sekhon joins the Moonshot team to head up its finance and analytics operation. He has a Masters in Behavioural Economics and was a derivatives trader for Barclays before taking the role in European inflation at RBS Group, where he was based in both London and Tokyo.

Moving Beyond Startup

Mars told DIGIT: “It can be difficult for entrepreneurs to find the support they need to grow their business beyond the initial startup phase. There is a fantastic community of programmes and mentors for early stage businesses and likewise for well-established ventures.

“However, businesses which have just secured seed-funding and are preparing to grow exist in a veritable no-man’s land – outgrown some support networks, yet not quite big enough for others. Moonshot provides a long-term partnership to guide growing businesses to the specialist support they need without breaking the bank. We want to help more startups make it to the next level.”

Sekhon said: “Investors have told us that they are frustrated with the lack of financial rigour that exists within potential investee companies. The founder is highly capable, the idea is great, but the unit economic understanding often lets them down.

“Attracting seed funding is just one step in a much longer journey. Building a large-scale business requires great financial foundations and I’m looking forward to getting under the hood of the businesses we work with to create just that.”

Launched in July, Moonshot was created by CEO Al Walker and E-Spark founder Jim Duffy to tackle the problem of two thirds of seed-funded startups failing to secure second round investment.

New Skills

Commenting on the new appointments, Walker said: “Bringing Sharon and Gus on board gives us a fantastically strong set of skills within our founding team which has already had an incredible impact on both our ability to serve our customers and the commercial direction of our own business.

“The ability to add marketing and financial rigour to our existing expertise in leadership coaching, revenue, supply chain and investment, means we can deliver exceptionally targeted specialist support to the founders we work with as and when they need it.

“After securing seed investment, many startup founders experience niche challenges across each of these areas and it’s important to us we can bring in the right support at the right time to help them grow.”

Moonshot Academy aims to help ambitious companies which want to grow – not scale – and help them focus on building a viable, profitable company capable of reaching the next level.

The company takes a performance-related option rather than equity in the businesses it works with.

Moonshot is currently looking for a maximum of 12 additional businesses to join its programme between now and Christmas 2017 to prevent oversubscription and ensure each startup founder receives valuable, focused and customised support.