£500 grant for local entrepreneur

The Swansea Seed Fund and C4EE - headed by Sue Poole, Enterprise Manager at Gower College Swansea - have awarded a £500 grant to a young man who has started his own security firm.

Jacob Stone started his security firm, Ozone Security, from the spare room of his Mumbles home when he was just a teen and opted to ditch studying to focus instead on his business, which now employs 15 permanent members of staff on a full time basis.

Jacob started out picking up litter with Mumbles Community Council and then went on to undertake work experience with Sparta Security which is based in Darlington, England.

‘’I just started working in their office to get some experience and it really helped me gain confidence," says Jacob. "They said they didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t do what they were doing in Swansea and that’s what prompted me to start Ozone Security.’’

Since then, Jacob has grown his company which works across Wales and covers event security, construction security and festivals.

Jacob will spend his £500 on radio communication for his team.

"The feedback for everything we’ve done has been positive," says Jacob, "and my family have been fully supportive of my choice to leave education to follow my passion. I plan to expand the business to cover the whole of the UK and the help from The Swansea Seed Fund will help me achieve that.’’