US-based accountancy firm Deloitte has established a £25m ($39m) internal investment fund that will support startups founded by its own staff, financial daily City AM reported on Monday.
Successful applicants will be able to incubate their projects on a full-time basis at the firm’s newly created unit, Innovation Investments. The firm received 60 proposals in the two weeks after it announced the fund’s formation.
Managing partner Simon Owen told City AM Deloitte had set up the incubator as a response to young talent increasingly leaving the firm in order to form startups.
Owen said: “The attrition argument is an important one in today’s so-called war for talent. We wanted to create this fund so that people can express themselves without necessarily leaving the firm.”