Every great business starts with an idea. It could be an individual moment of inspiration, or a concept hashed out by a group in a lab, classroom or coffee shop, but that initial idea is the origin story of every successful company, from tiny startups to world leading unicorns. But turning that idea into a sustainable business requires the support of an innovation ecosystem, something that young entrepreneurs at Imperial have right on their doorstep.

“Being able to bounce ideas around in a place where a lot of people are thinking about science and entrepreneurship is incredibly helpful,” says Cai Linton (MEng Bioengineering 2022), co-founder of Multus. His company has developed a sustainable and affordable alternative to the growth medium used to feed the cells used for things such as cultivated meat and medicine.

“There are facilities we can access, we can talk to professors who have often set up companies themselves, and we can use areas like Hackspace in White City,” says Linton. “That keeps us here and creates a sustainable ecosystem.”

For many Imperial undergraduates with a bright idea, the journey begins by engaging with one of the university’s wealth of entrepreneurial support offerings. One of these, a competition, is the Faculty of Natural Sciences Make-A-Difference (FoNS-MAD). It gives successful entrants eight weeks of lab time with a mentor, not to mention a final prize of £7,000. Multus won the competition in 2019, giving it valuable experience, a provable concept and a healthy amount of cash to spend on materials.

An earlier FoNS-MAD champion was Matoha, which won the competition in 2017 with a device that identifies different types of plastic for recycling. While preparing for the final, Matoha’s founders realised they weren’t just having fun, they were building a business. Their devices are now sold to companies in 45 countries to help with recycling.

“A lot of plastics look the same, but a yoghurt cup can be made from three different types of plastic,” explains co-founder Dr Martin Holicky (Chemistry 2019, MRes 2020, PhD 2024). “We had the idea of creating a device like a supermarket scanner that can instantly identify the composition of an item, and over eight weeks we developed our prototype to present at the final. It was held together with duct tape but it worked. We now have a range of other devices for fabrics and are working on one for carpets, but we wouldn’t be here at all without FoNS-MAD.” Holicky has since “paid it forward” by signing the Imperial Entrepreneurs’ Pledge in support of the next generation of innovators.

The competition originated at a staff away day, when members of faculty noted that undergraduates weren’t participating in Imperial’s innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives. With the support of academics and alumni (all of whom are both scientists and entrepreneurs), the competition has grown in scope and scale, nurturing prospective talent through workshops and matchmaking services so entrepreneurs can share plans and find teammates, and then providing mentors and advisers as the competition progresses.

Students initially submit an outline proposal, explaining how their invention will benefit society and what they would do with an eight-week lab placement. “We got 30 outline proposals this year, which we whittled down to about ten who submitted a more detailed proposal,” explains Rebecca Middleton, Director of Education and Student Experience, who has run FoNS-MAD since its inception ten years ago.

“We then pick between four and six to complete the fully funded lab placement. They are given a bursary, a consumables fund, a supervisor and a mentor. We support all the finalists to enter other competitions and act as a feeder to entrepreneurship programmes such as the Venture Catalyst Challenge, WE Innovate and the other services available at the Enterprise Lab.”

THE BEST PLACE TO BE

Several FoNS-MAD finalists have become successful businesses, often continuing their progress with the support of these other Imperial services. The latest winners, Team Marigold, are still in the early stages of that journey. The team – Leo Kremer (Design Engineering, Second Year), Maria Guerrero Jimenez (Physics, Second Year) and Mele Gadzama (Physics, Second Year) – invented a way of eliminating triggering noises for people with misophonia, a condition where people experience profound discomfort when they hear sounds such as chewing or coughing.

“Our original idea was noise-cancelling headphones, but experts told us this would be very hard to do,” explains Kremer. “We then looked at applying our technology to video. We talked to people with misophonia who said an online solution would be very helpful as they often choose to move to online for things like lectures as it allows them to avoid triggering sounds, but they still encounter them when they watch videos.”

During eight weeks in the lab, Team Marigold developed a programme that could analyse, identify and remove the sound of coughing from video. Over the next few years, they intend to develop the concept further with the support of Imperial. Like many other FoNS-MAD winners, their next step will be the Enterprise Lab in South Kensington, a dedicated support service for students, staff and alumni who want to develop ideas and expand networks.

“If you are a student with an entrepreneurial idea, the Enterprise Lab is the place to be,” says Graham Hewson, Head of Incubation and Prototyping Spaces. “They have mentors who can work with students, they organise venture treks to meet alumni, they run idea surgeries and they have experts who can help tease out an idea to find the market potential.”

In fact, the Enterprise Lab oftens sends students to Hewson, who runs the Advanced Hackspace and the White City Incubator. The Advanced Hackspace is a shared workspace with advanced tools and machinery for students to use on personal projects. It hosts the Hackstarter, a competition where each finalist is given £500 to develop a prototype. “Multus started at Hackspace,” says Hewson, “and it’s really interesting to see how far that £500 can go.”

BUILDING A COMMUNITY

The White City Incubator offers lab space for staff- and student-founded businesses, as well as external startups that want to work with Imperial. Companies stay for a maximum of three years and become part of an entrepreneurial community through events such as Sip And Solve, where founders share their current challenges with other companies in the lab.

While Imperial students can usually find a professor to answer scientific questions, the Incubator provides access to more elusive marketing, legal and financial experts – essential for anybody building a company. “The feedback we get is that people miss that community when they graduate,” says Hewson. “They all know each other and share experiences and information.”

It’s been a huge success. Since 2016, the Incubator has hosted 59 companies that raised £622 million in investment and created more than 640 jobs. Of the companies that graduated to independent spaces in Imperial’s Scale Space and I-HUB, more than 80 per cent were still around after three years.

Multus is one of those graduates of the Imperial ecosystem. Having utilised the Advanced Hackspace, FoNS-MAD, Enterprise Lab and the Incubator, the company remains on the White City Campus at Wood Lane’s I-HUB. That allows it to give something back to Imperial, through things like internships for Imperial students and meeting FoNS-MAD entrants to offer advice and inspiration. It’s part of an innovation feedback, allowing successful alumni to support the next generation of entrepreneurs.

“Why do we do it?” says Middleton. “We do it because our students are awesome. They are super-intelligent and so creative, and we get to encourage that innovation by creating an opportunity beyond their studies. What they manage to achieve during FoNS-MAD really blows me away. This is the bit of my job I love the best.”