Andrew Mountbatten Windsor has stated his desire to close out most of his current business ventures, Pitch@Palace Global among them. That said, the organization’s ongoing financial woes and self-inflicted controversies continue to plague it. It started back in 2014 as an online platform for entrepreneurs to pitch their business ideas to a pool of potential investors at glamorous locations such as St James’s Palace.
Pitch@Palace has historically been geared towards encouraging the spirit of innovation. It offers early-stage startups a special opportunity to network with investors and other industry-leading mentors. The program experienced major setbacks in recent years. According to the most recently filed financial statements, Pitch@Palace was sitting on £10,965 as of the end of March 2023. This represents a record decrease from £220,990 in the previous year.
In 2019, Pitch@Palace got its wings clipped when it was grounded in the face of severe financial woes. The UK branch of the initiative was formally wound down in 2021. Yet even after these disappointments, Pitch@Palace Global, the international branch of the program, did not stop there. With Mountbatten Windsor’s recent application to dissolve this segment, the future of the initiative looks grim.
The 2023 ruling by the UK’s semi-secret national security court added a problematic layer to the Pitch@Palace ordeal. The court supported a ban on Yang Teng Bo, the founder of the Chinese arm of Pitch@Palace, barring him from entering the UK. Yang was later accused of espionage — a charge he has adamantly denied. This development further threatened the integrity and safety of the program, making it even more difficult for the program to function operationally in a viable way.
Mountbatten Windsor’s association with Pitch@Palace has been important over its life. As a royal figurehead, he recognized the initiative’s critical role in fostering entrepreneurship and innovation. The perfect storm of both financial collapse and the urgent need for security has led him to make strong moves about how it will survive going forward.