"Tanio 2026" - M-Sparc's Finance and Innovation Conference

M-SParc, The Menai Science Park at Gaerwen on Anglesey

Author: Chris Andrews  Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0  Source: Wikimedia Commons

 

Jane Lambert

Every year, the Menai Science Park ("M-SParc") holds a finance and innovation conference. I attended and reported on last year's conference (M-SParc's Finance and Innovation Conference where all the Speakers happened to be women, 20 June 2026) and the previous year's (M-SParc's Finance and Innovation Conference, 10 May 2025).  This year's conference was combined with Business Wales's AI and Business event, which took place in the same venue between 14:00 and 17:00 that same afternoon. Both events were very interesting and I shall review Business Wales's event separately in order to do it justice.    There was also an evening of vibe coding with Lovable after 18:30, which I would have attended had I more time.

The event followed the previous years' formula of short presentations and panel discussions with many of the same speakers.   They included Barbara Want, Emma Richards, Louise Jones and Nia Roberts.  Barbara chaired a discussion between Iwan Pritchard and Owen Tomos of Pelly and their angel investor, Bobby Williams, and gave another talk on pitching as she did last year.  Emma discussed patents, copyrights, trade marks and designs, Louise introduced us to Innovate UK, while Nia chaired the conference.

 One of the topics that Barbara discussed was body language, which she illustrated with photos of chimpanzees.  I have to confess that she was in danger of losing me at that point because she persisted in referring to chimps as "monkeys". Chimpanzees, like orangutans and human beings, are of course apes. One of the science park's most illustrious tenants is Gareth yr Orangutan and I was reminded of a scene in one of his videos in which he had struck out the word "mwnci."  

Whenever an entrepreneur accepts equity investment, he or she shares ownership and control of the business with the investor.  The point was mentioned in the panel discussion on Pelly.  It is rarely a problem with angel investment because the amount is relatively small. However, it can be different with private equity investment because the venture capitalist invests so much more.  In a panel discussion on investment, I asked Ashley Rogers of the Foresight Group what happens in a business where one of the founders is brilliant when it comes to technology but has no aptitude or interest in business.  To my great surprise, Ash replied that the issue had never arisen in his experience.  Potential problems of that kind can be avoided by thorough due diligence.  Unless he had full confidence in the management, the investment would not proceed.

I enjoyed all the discussions and congratulate all the speakers.   I particularly liked Pryderi ap Rhisiart's story.   Some interesting business ideas were presented.   I was especially impressed by Grantpal, Tom Burke and Hayden Kibble's grant and business support matching service,  Vedri, Dan Parry Evans's virtual production studio and a new mega drone project.  I wish all those businesses the best of luck.

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