The Enterprise Hub welcomes its first Shott Scale Up Accelerator cohort of 2023

Case45 is developing artificial intelligence technologies for cancer biomarkers and therapeutics. They aim to launch AI-based digital tests that are faster, cheaper, and more accurate than alternatives to accelerate precision oncology.

Khalid wants to capitalise on the Shott Scale Up Accelerator to help manage, lead, and motivate an experienced team. He is planning to attend the Next-Level Leadership course at London Business School, London. He also wants to use the networking and mentorship through the programme to expand his circle and learn from the experience of other entrepreneurs and founders in the life sciences domain.

Deep Render helps address the growing volume of data on the internet. Deep Render have developed an AI-based compression technology for video that can compress media by up to 80%. The company is at a critical point in its development and needs to scale rapidly over the next 12 to 18 months.

Chri knows his role has pivoted to become more business and investor facing than technical. He is looking forward to the peer-to-peer networking and mentoring, delivered as part of the Shott Scale Up Accelerator. This will help him to develop his skills and understanding in this area in order to support his business during a time of potentially very rapid growth.

QV Bioelectronics is developing a first-of-its-kind implantable medical device, GRACE, for the treatment of malignant brain tumours using electrical stimulation to directly interfere with the process of cancer cell division, mitosis, to slow tumour growth. QV’s technology is in preclinical development, with first human clinical studies planned in the next few years.

Christopher is aware of the challenges of growing from a small, R&D focused team, into a company with international commercial activity in the next two years. He plans to use the Shott Scale Up Accelerator mentoring offer to build on previous business advice that will help get their growth strategy right.

Muddy Machines was founded in response to the growing shortage of harvest labour caused by Brexit and Covid. They have developed, alongside farmers, Sprout, an electric robot platform that can replicate five workers. An initial tool replaces humans in harvesting green asparagus and they are now expanding its capabilities to harvest other crops.

Chris is planning to use the training, mentoring, and networking in the Shott Scale Up Accelerator to develop his leadership skills. The company has recently expanded to 16 employees and he foresees new challenges as they grow the company and extend the product’s capabilities.

BladeBUG is developing advanced robots in the rapidly growing wind energy sector to assist technicians in the inspection and repair of turbine blades, without the need for rope access. They are taking their current minimum viable product to commercial development with all the challenges that brings.

Chris Cieslak, like many engineers, is finding himself in an increasingly commercial and managerial role. He feels the mentoring and peer networking provided by the Shott Scale Up Accelerator are key to supporting him in developing the skills he needs to support the company’s growth.

Pragmatic Semiconductor create ultra-low-cost, ultra-thin, flexible integrated circuits that can be embedded into almost anything. Example applications include radio frequency identification (RFID) and near field communications (NFC). The chips cost less than a penny and allow everyday objects to be given unique digital identities and interact with their environment.

Brian is looking to further develop as a leader, particularly when it comes to managing the risks inherent in developing new technology at a cutting-edge deep tech company in a high-growth phase. He sees the Shott Scale Up Accelerator as a space to discuss personal growth and skills, as well as an opportunity to step back and see the big picture.

Aegiq is an award-winning spinout from the University of Sheffield developing quantum photonic solutions and services. Their innovations represent a seismic leap in our ability to simulate complex systems, from new material discovery to industrial process optimisation, and have the potential to disrupt multiple industries.

Leading the engineering team, Scott is responsible for product development and the company’s technology roadmap alongside honing company strategy to deliver long-term growth. The Shott Scale Up Accelerator offers an opportunity to gain extra insight and education in developing key areas such as company strategy, complex product, and innovation management.

Multiply AI Ltd launched in 2016 to create an AI-based advice engine to make good financial advice accessible to everyone. It became the first business of its kind to be FCA-authorised in 2019, and since then has made over 250,000 recommendations and advised on over £3bn worth of assets.

Tim is responsible for the company’s product development and strategy. He is looking to use the mentorship within the Shott Scale Up Accelerator to support working with large enterprise customers, scaling a fintech business, and building a product team. This will support Multiply to scale their core product offering, win business with more UK-based clients, and continue to develop their advice technology to serve more use cases and increased case complexity.

Impact Recycling was set up to commercialise BOSS technology that can sort polymers with a narrow density difference using only water. This can reduce and remove plastics from the waste stream after easy-to-recycle components have been removed. This reduces the amount of plastic going to incineration.

James recognises that the company’s growth means he needs to change how he undertakes his role. The company is currently expanding from one site to three. The Shott Scale Up Accelerator offers him opportunities to discuss these challenges with a broader range of mentors and peers.

Unicorn Biotechnologies offers a new generation of autonomous smart machines for complex cellular bioproduction in the fields of cultivated meat and cell therapies. Starting from a lab in an attic, they have become a cornerstone of this $5 trillion dollar bioeconomy.

Adam sees his role as making sure the team have everything they need to collectively succeed in their mission. He believes the opportunities the Shott Scale Up Accelerator provides to understand how others think and develop processes to maximise performance, will help with people management and encouraging great performance throughout the team.

RFC Power is developing long-duration energy storage with high performance at low cost. RFC Power’s novel flow battery makes use of cheap, abundant manganese and clean green hydrogen to deliver a low-cost solution for the growing long-duration energy storage market.

Ashkan identifies helping to set strategy, and engaging commercial partners and investors to enhance value creation within the company, as key areas for development. He anticipates that the Shott Scale Up Accelerator’s mentoring programme can help him to develop in this area. This will support RFC Power to scale up its long-duration storage technology and roll it out to the world.

Factory 42 is a studio developing Extended Reality – a combination of real and virtual material. Their Impact Entertainment platform combines storytelling with technology to create effective interactive experiences. Currently they are starting to commercialise their knowledge into a range of products.

Stephen recognises the challenges this phase of their growth brings. He wants to use the Shott Scale up Accelerator support to help with building and scaling their teams and sees mentoring and networking opportunities as tools to support this.

Untap Ltd provide intelligent, community health monitoring, using sewage. Starting with COVID-19 and influenza, then other viruses such as norovirus and emergent viruses, they have developed detection tools to discover infections in a community. This allows intervention before they become an outbreak. Longer term they want to monitor a whole host of pathogens including stress, E.Coli, MRSA, and even some cancers.

Claire leads on areas including business strategy. She hopes that the Shott Scale Up Accelerator can help to develop B2B sales experience, to enable them to build their brand and to deliver these materials to new customers.

Sequential Skin develop products to test the skin’s microbiome. They are building on their dataset of skin types to choose optimal formulations for medications and personal care products. They will be looking to hit a major financial milestone of £2M+ in sales within 12 months.

Oliver leads on developing new products and services, establishing distributors, and fundraising. He is looking forward to gaining Shott Scale Up Accelerator’s support in developing founder networks where participants can share stories and support each other.