One hundred of the most respected and celebrated tech entrepreneurs, investors and operators will advise and coach startup founders, as part of a Cambridge Enterprise initiative supporting and accelerating University of Cambridge founders. Nigel Toon (Graphcore), Stan Boland (FiveAI), Matt Clifford (Entrepreneur First), Rahul Vohra (Superhuman), Pete Hutton (Arm), Sophie Adelman (Multiverse), David Singleton (Stripe), Suranga Chandratillake (Balderton Capital) and Rebecca Simmons (Riverlane) are just some of the Cambridge alumni and non-alumni joining the Founders at the University of Cambridge community to support the next generation of Cambridge startups.
The tech and business establishment giving back
Founders at the University of Cambridge aims to accelerate the University’s reputation for creating impactful tech companies by bringing together the resources to champion game-changing technologies and new ventures. The initiative’s experts will draw on their industry knowledge to help shape the success of the emerging startups.
Of the first 100 experts joining the community, almost half are entrepreneurs, a third are investors and a quarter are industry leaders. Between them, they have founded over 100 companies with an estimated value of $15 billion and invested in over 800 new ventures in sectors including deeptech (57%) and biotech and life sciences (21%). The cohort is 49% female and 51% male, with over a quarter coming from Black, Asian, minority and ethnic backgrounds.
In addition, Founders at the University of Cambridge is announcing strategic partners including AstraZeneca, Babraham Labs, Hitachi Europe, Judge Business School and KPMG, who will provide support including mentoring. The partners’ combined experience of all stages of the startup journey and the corporate world will be invaluable to support the new founders to scale, grow and maximise their impact.
Founders at the University of Cambridge is a new initiative from the University’s innovation arm Cambridge Enterprise, building on the work achieved so far by the University and its entrepreneurial alumni who have gone on to build genre-defining companies.
Cambridge is the third most important science hub in the world according to research by Dealroom, has the highest per inhabitant number of university alumni founders who have raised >$10 million and is second in the UK for unicorn creation after London.
Between 2022 and 2023, Cambridge tech companies have raised $1.3 billion in funding. Out of 164 companies raising funding, 45% were pre-seed companies. 289 Cambridge alumni-founded startups have raised pre-seed funding in the past two years, ahead of University College London (164), Manchester (89), Oxford (58) and Imperial College London alumni (36). One recent Cambridge spinout, Nu Quantum, raised £7 million to pioneer quantum computer networking, whilst another, T-Therapeutics, has secured £48M in its mission to deliver next-generation cancer treatments.
To continue this success, the University needs to ensure that its IP-rich and knowledge-intensive early-stage companies are receiving enough funding and mentorship to get started and reach that first institutional cheque. To support founders tackling difficult problems, the initiative is opening applications to its first pre-seed accelerator programme for entrepreneurial academics who need a solid growth path before formal fundraising.
As part of the first 12-week programme, up to 10 early-stage companies will receive intensive mentoring, connections and seed funding from a pool of up to £2 million, which includes funding from co-investor Parkwalk Advisors. The programme and funding which includes 50 hours of intensive mentorship from a bespoke entrepreneur in residence (EIR), free office space and priority access to lab space, will help to accelerate and smooth the path to success. In this way, Cambridge is offering startup help comparable to that provided at great US universities such as MIT and Stanford. Applications open today and close on Friday 15 December 2023, with the first founders announced in February 2024.
Visit the Founders at the University of Cambridge website to learn more, meet the experts and apply to the programme.