Over the course of the six month Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Design (IE&D) programme and the Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Management (IE&M) programme, interdisciplinary teams worked to commercialise business ideas from various industries. Teams from both courses, as well as other Business School courses. This year, eight teams have been selected to present to a panel of venture capitalists and angel investors, where they will be evaluated on market opportunity, product / service feasibility and market entry strategy and growth plans amongst other criteria.
The top three teams at the end of the day will go through to a Dragons Den style panel at the evening ceremony with the winning team presented with a prize of £10,000 to further develop their business venture. Guests will be able to listen to the finalist team pitches and enjoy food, drinks and entertainment after the ceremony.
The I&E START! Challenge is hosted by the Imperial College Business School’s Entrepreneurship Hub.
This year’s finalist teams
FitCat
An app, device and community designed to support getting your cat in top condition helping owners to better understand and engage with their pets.
TRIBE
A technology platform enabling independant coffee shops to attract, connect with and retain current and potential customers.
Hackscience
The Hackscience platform enables users to share, discover and control open-sourced lab tools.
Zio Health
Affordable home diagnostic and therapeutic device that can significantly reduce the risk of developing life-threatening chronic diseases through the testing of important parameters in body fluids.
Recycle It
Smart recycling and waste bin which will use technology to improve sorting between waste and recycling.
MagnaCare
An iOS app platform facilitating non-emergency on-demand home care services within London.
AdGo
The digital equivalent to local weekly grocery catalogues available on demand, without the unwanted additional flyers in a mobile app.
Link Up
A data visualisation tool enabling LinkedIN users to quickly and efficiently find opportunities within their professional network.
About the dragons panel
Arnie Sriskandarajah, Investment Director, Elevate Ventures.VC
Arnie is a VC and active angel investor, and is co-founder & Partner at SpringWise Ventures, a VC firm focussed on investing on average £1m into consumer centric start-ups across Europe. He is the co-founder & former MD at the Collective Elevator fund that invested on average £250k into similar companies. Previously, Arnie was at Rocket Internet where he built HelloFresh in the UK and helped launch 4 other ventures. He has also served as the inaugural Entrepreneur in Residence at the European Commission and has recently been named by Forbes in their 30Under30 lists and by Wired in their 100 Most Influential People in Tech” as well as the Dell Entrepreneur of the Month in 2014.
Harveen Chugh, Managing Director, VIS-3
Harveen specialises in working with entrepreneurs in the first 2 years of their journey from start-up to sales and investment. She has a track record of managing a portfolio of 25 start-ups and achieving success with £4.97mn equity investment raised and £32.27mn in valuation. Recent clients with VIS-3 include universities to whom they provide coaching and mentoring, workshop delivery and advising on growth programmes.
Harveen has previously worked as a lecturer in Entrepreneurship & Strategy for the University of London and as a mentor for a number of programmes including the Microsoft Accelerator London and MassChallenge.
Colin Spiller, London Angel Club Manager, Angels Den
Colin worked as the Business Development Manager for six years for an early stake tech focus venture capitalist firm, and generated am extra £1.5 million into investee companies. He went onto launch and manage the London Angel Club for Angels Den, which has raised over £4.5 million for entrepreneurs since launching, with over £1.6 million in 2014, and £1 million for seven deals so far this year. Colin also co-leads the London meetings of the 3Cs Community on a pro bono basis, which encourages entrepreneurs based on a pay it forward basis. Colin is a member of the Information Technology Livery Company and a founder member of the recently formed Guild of Entrepreneurs.
Places are limited, to avoid disappointment, register your place now.
For more information, please contact entrepreneurship@imperial.ac.uk