Problem:

Losing your eyesight is one of the most devastating things that can happen to a person. 

Some forms of vision loss that affect the retina, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), or diabetes can be treated. This requires monthly injections into the eye for at least five years. The treatment works well for most people but requires regular outpatient visits and there is a small risk of additional complications from the injection process itself.

There is a real need to make treatments better, safer and more convenient.

Solution:

I-Daruma has developed a technology that takes the same treatment and makes it possible to deliver the currently injected drugs as eye drops instead. It works by creating short-lived nanoparticles that are mixed with the drugs. These then dissociate at the target tissues, releasing the drug. The nanoparticles are made from compounds that naturally occur in the body and are well-tolerated, giving the technology the advantages of nanoparticle delivery without the toxicity associated with current nanoparticles. 

The eye drops will address several issues with the current treatment regime. While injections must be administered by trained healthcare professionals in a clinical setting, eye drops can be administered by the patient themselves anywhere, resulting in large healthcare cost savings.

Worldwide, there were 14 million intravitreal injections performed in 2018 and it’s a number that has been growing 20% year-on-year. The drivers of treatment are the ageing global population and metabolic disease such as diabetes.  About one third of people living with diabetes will suffer from diabetic retinopathy. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is also a leading cause of vision loss in Europe and the US. Currently, 196 million people are estimated to be affected by AMD globally, a figure expected to hit 288 million by 2040.   

In the next 12 to 18 months, Naa Dei anticipates applying for InnovateUK Grant funding and looks forward to completing pre-clinical trials and having a dossier for approval for clinical trials.

Traction:

2020 – Awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering’s Enterprise Fellowship.

2020 – Piloting trials of technology with a pharmaceutical company.

The problem

Sustainable construction demands better management of social and environmental impact. To achieve this, reliable, efficient tools are needed to make sense of large volumes of data across the range of related fields.

The solution

Qflow is a cloud-based platform that enables construction projects to manage their environmental risk and stay compliant with environmental standards.

Qflow brings together machine learning and the Internet of things to capture and analyse environmental data, making it easier to identify and manage risk. This increases productivity and reduces cost while positively impacting the built environment.

The technology connects to existing, on-site systems to automate real-time data collection and analysis. This leads to better informed decisions, more accurate predictions and the ability to generate standardised reports. It reduces costs associated with delays and mitigation processes caused by unmanaged environmental risk. 

Trials have shown that Qualis Flows’ solutions can improve data capture against existing competitors by over 100%. Four pilot programmes are scheduled for spring 2019 to further validate the technology’s use in monitoring aspects such as waste, noise, air quality and vibration.

Brittany Harris brings significant experience in civil engineering as she leads a multi-skilled team of engineers, environmental professionals and software architects as Qualis Flow brings its solutions to market.

Traction

• 2018:  Funding awarded by Entrepreneur First to develop Qflow’s technology
• 2018:  Awarded support from the Geovation Advanced London Accelerator programme for startup development.
• Brittany Harris was awarded a 2018 Enterprise Fellowship to support her work in developing the technology and scale up of Qualis

The problem

The array of switches, buttons, wheels and controls that help us to interact with electronics all rely on bulky and complex networks of sensors that can cost a lot to create.

The solution

TG0 has developed a new technology for making interactive 3D controls that are ergonomic, intuitive and engaging. Its solutions replace complicated networks of electronic sensors with one uniform, flexible, touch-sensitive material.

Driven by artificial intelligence algorithms and advanced signal processing, TG0’s platform technology can accurately detect variations in touch across a single flexible surface. This allows its material to easily sense pressure, location, speed, direction and movement allowing users to engage in more intuitive ways.

As Co-Founder, Ming leads research and development for the technology’s hardware. TG0’s seamless, interactive surfaces can be used in a range of applications including tactile gaming controls, car dashboard controls and ergonomic computer peripherals such as keyboards, amongst many others.

TG0 is also exploring how its technology can be used to make interactive products that are more accessible for the visually impaired.

Since its launch in 2016, TG0 has worked with high profile brands and manufacturers in the consumer and automotive sector and built a patent portfolio with more than ten international patent entries to date. A rapidly growing team is helping the company to expand and target a range of industries including sensor-embedded industrial robots, wearables, gadgets and underwater electronics.

Traction

• March 2019 – Launch of a first-of-its-kind finger tracking virtual reality controller kit    
• 2019 – Raised £1.4 million to grow the team and expand market reach
• 2018 – 5 working partnerships with world-leading automotive and consumer brands developed since launch

The problem

The flexible and printed electronics markets are working towards having speedy, defect-free manufacturing processes. To achieve this, they need new inspection systems that allow live testing and enable real-time quality assurance without stopping production.

The solution

Dr Muhamedsalih has helped create a multi-wavelength polarising interferometer (MPI) for in-line surface metrology. It operates at the micro/nano-scale level and can be used for real time inspections of moving surfaces. The interferometer is combined with a software method to handle larger amount of data for surface analysis without direct interaction from the operator.

The system detects and characterises defects. This means that manufacturers will be able to understand what causes faults and take measures to correct them. Importantly, the technology is sufficiently robust to be used on the shop floor.

Hussam is now working to validate the MPI’s performance with world-leading manufacturers and research centres. His innovation is being tested by the UK Catapult National Centre for Printable Electronics – Centre for Process Innovation. His proof of concept system should reach Technology Readiness Level 9 before the end of 2021 and be ready to launch and available to buy soon after.

Analysts have forecast that the global metrology market will grow to over $600 million by 2023 in the traditional manufacturing market. Hussam’s technology also fits into the printed and flexible electronics markets, which are predicted to grow to $77 billion by 2023.

For Dr Muhamedsalih, the Enterprise Fellowship experience has: “allowed me to structure my business model and test it out by intensive direct interaction with industry and potential clients.”

Traction

• 2014 International winner in the Manufacturing Technology category of the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s annual Innovation Awards
• 2016  Becomes a Fellow of the Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers
• 2019  Dr Hussam Muhamedsalih was awarded an Enterprise Fellowship
• 2020 MPI installed at the UK Catapult National Centre for Printable Electronics – Centre for Process Innovation.

Problem:

Women deserve a better way of getting professionally fitted for bras. The lack of care and proper training within the bra industry means that bra-sizing confusion is a never-ending debate. Inefficient practices result in 80% of women wearing bras that don’t fit properly and billions of pounds lost every year in size- and fit-related exchanges and returns.

Solution:

Combining state-of-the-art computer vision with data from real-life women (our co-creators), Brarista is bringing professional bra-fitting to bra-wearers’ homes.  Its technology makes it possible for clients to find their best fit across product lines simply by using their phone camera.

Researching this technology to ensure its usefulness and accuracy is technically complex. Brarista is working hard to continue building, testing, and improving the current prototype before conducting technical trials.

The ongoing pandemic gave Brarista an opportunity to collaborate with Boost Innovations Ltd to apply its technology to fit breast prostheses online for breast cancer survivors (classified by the NHS as a higher-risk group). Research shows that getting bra-fitted using a tape-measure results in a 70% inaccuracy rate, but this is still the most popular method used by high street bra-fitters and online bra-fitting guides. Brarista hopes that its technology will improve the accuracy by at least 40% to be on par with professional bra-fitting by eyesight.

Traction:

2018 - Won the Most Innovative Idea at the UCL Innovation and Enterprise Launch Programme

2019 - Team formation and acquired trial interests from the industry

2019 - Selected as a startup to be mentored by DeFine Network EU (a European Commission-funded FashionTech Community).

2019 - Selected as one of seven startups to join Women in AI & Data in Israel with InnovateUK

2019 - Highly Commended Award at the Academy’s Enterprise Hub Launchpad Competition Final

2020 - Crowdfunded successfully and matchfunded with NatWest Back Her Business

2020 - Acquired a new research client to apply its technology to fit breast prosthesis online

To find out more abut Brarista visit https://www.brarista.co/

Problem:

For decades, satellites have been getting smaller but the rockets that launch them haven’t. Most active vehicles are still designed for historically large satellites and this is forcing a new generation of SmallSats to rideshare on enormous rockets in an expensive system of compromise.

Solution:

Of the small satellites forecast to be launched between 2021 and 2030, 70% are predicted to fall in the under 250-kilogram weight class. However, launch vehicles that can operate at this weight lack appropriate propulsion systems. There is a clear market demand for dedicated launch vehicles that can take small satellites exactly where and when they need to go, but the fundamental technical challenge is that rocket engines and their associated pumps and turbomachinery are incredibly difficult to scale down. Attempts to scale down existing technology commonly result in spiralling costs and complexities.

Protolaunch believes that the right engine is the key to unlocking a successful microlauncher, and aims to supply that propulsion. It is developing an engine based around a novel thermodynamic cycle designed specifically for small payloads from the outset. This is possible because of its core engine technology, which acts as the enabler for a new type of launch vehicle.

The Protolaunch engine has three key advantages:

1. Simplicity: it eliminates complex turbomachinery and operates at pressures up to 20 times lower than existing concepts.
2. Weight reduction: it uses additive manufacturing with a light-weight alloy selection for components that were traditionally the heaviest parts in a rocket.
3. Sustainability: it facilitates use of carbon-neutral fuels in a way that was historically very difficult for blow-down engines to achieve, removing the reliance on and the weight penalty of extreme high-pressure tanks.

Traction:

• Contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) through the General Support for Technology Programme (GSTP) to develop software and modelling tools for propulsion system development.
• Working with University of Southampton through the Space Research and Innovation Network for Technology (SPRINT) with a major grant.
• Member of the European Space Agency Business Incubation Centre (ESA BIC).
• Winner of the University of Cambridge Entrepreneurs ‘Ideas Take Flight’ 2019 Competition.
• Soapbox Award at UK Space Conference 2019.
• Finalist of the Royal Academy of Engineering Launchpad Competition 2019.
• Alumni of the Westcott Business Incubation Centre.
• Alumni of the Santander University Growth Accelerator (SUGA) as a company representing the Cambridge Judge Business School.

Problem:

Better intraoperative guidance can help reduce patient morbidity and healthcare costs across surgical specialties. For example, brain tumour patients undergoing surgery have significantly improved outcomes and increased life expectancy if complete tumour removal is achieved. However, maximal resection needs to be balanced with the goal of healthy tissue preservation in order to minimise patient risk and neurological impairment. Yet, even with the most advanced current techniques, intraoperative decisions with potentially life-changing consequences are still based on the surgeon’s subjective visual assessment.

Solution:

Hypervision Surgical has designed an AI-powered imaging system for wide-field tissue characterisation that attaches to and enhances existing surgical equipment. For the first time, surgeons will have real-time actionable information on tumour and critical brain structure margins during surgery. In addition, their system can monitor vital physiological tissue properties thereby increasing surgical precision and patient safety while optimising resection.

As a King’s College London spin-out, Hypervision Surgical is embedded in the St Thomas’ MedTech Hub and has close ties with King’s Health Partner hospitals. Further clinical studies are scheduled to develop and evaluate their technology to achieve commercial readiness.

Traction:

• 2019: First in-patient clinical study of research prototype.
• 2019: Live demo of intraoperative research prototype at New Scientist Live.
• 2020: Incorporation of Hypervision Surgical Ltd.
• 2020: Royal Academy of Engineering Proof of Concept Award
• 2021: Innovate UK Secondment Scholarship Award

Dr Ebner was awarded an Enterprise Fellowship award in 2020 to support him as he leads Hypervision Surgical in bringing its innovations to market.

Problem:

Modern surgical implants use ‘press-fit’ and are hammered into place by the surgeon, creating friction that holds the implant in place. If the surgeon impacts the implant too rigorously, the bone may be over-stressed and fracture.

Bone fracture during hip replacement surgery affects between 2% and 8% of patients. If fracture occurs the patient is seven times more likely to need expensive revision surgery and twice as likely to die from complications.

Solution:

Additive Instruments’ technology is a ‘smart’ surgical tool that can sense the force being applied to the instrument and adjust it to reduce the chances of fracture. By reducing the variation in impaction force, the technology also reduces the learning curve for new surgeons – reducing the likelihood of fracture through inexperience.

In the UK and US, 400,000 hip replacement procedures are conducted every year. If a conservative estimate of 2% of these surgeries were to result in fracture, 8,000 patients would suffer a painful and debilitating injury each year, most requiring revision surgery at great expense. These surgeries are estimated to cost £25 million every year.

Additive Instruments’ technology has been proven in the laboratory, so its next key milestone is to validate the product in a clinical environment, first with specimens and subsequently with live patients. Once the efficacy of the product has been proven, Additive Instruments will apply for a CE mark – a key achievement for any medical device.

Early laboratory development was supported by the Wellcome trust with a product translation award. Following the support of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Enterprise Hub, Additive Instruments has been awarded an i4i (invention for innovation) award from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). This funding will help it achieve its goal of first clinical usage within the next two years.

Traction:

• 2019: Msk MEC Sandpit Translation Award.
• 2020: NIHR i4i Award.
• 2020: Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellowship.

Problem:

Commercial drones are now being used for several different roles such as mapping farms, inspecting buildings and search-and-rescue operations. Most commercial drone automation software on the market is generic, meaning drone operators and enterprises requiring customised solutions are forced to use many different types of software to get their job done. This becomes incredibly expensive and unreliable.

Solution:

Hammer Flights Ltd is the world’s first adaptive flight automation software for unmanned aerial vehicles. It is highly versatile, supporting many different types of flight automation and yet is extremely simple to use. Using modular software architecture and APIs , the software morphs according to the task at hand.

Hammer aims to empower every drone operation in the world with adaptive flight automation to make their operations more productive, creative and safe. Its next key milestone is to understand how it can scale its enterprise offerings over the next 12 to 18 months.

The commercial drone industry is currently worth $13 billion and is expected to grow to $45 billion by 2025. A lot of this growth is attributed to enterprises rapidly setting up in-house drone teams and integrating drones into their existing workflows. Each one of these businesses will be looking for a customised flight automation solution that adapts to the needs of their business.

Hammer is currently grant funded by Ordnance Survey – the UK’s largest mapping agency – and the Royal Academy of Engineering through its Enterprise Fellowship programme. It has also formed strategic partnerships within the drone ecosystem.

Traction:

• June 2019: Hammer launched on mobile platforms supporting DJI drones.
• Sept 2019: Awarded grant funding by Ordnance Survey.
• Feb 2020: Hammer launches Hammer Hub - a platform for drone teams to plan, automate and manage their drone operations.
• March 2020 Milestone: 10,000 successful commercial flights completed on the platform.
• April 2020: Hammer deployed with mining business using drones for mineral exploration.
• May 2020: Hammer deployed with the largest railway maintenance agency in the UK.
• June 2020: Hammer awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellowship
• July 2020: Hammer deployed with a reforesting business using drones to plant trees.

Dr Hermann Hauser KBE FREng FRS is widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of the Silicon Fen cluster. He is a co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners, alongside  Anne Glover CBE HonFREng. He has been involved in several successful startups in his time at Amadeus such as CSR plc, Entropic Research Laboratory (which was later acquired by Microsoft) and Icera (acquired by Nvidia in 2011).

His career began famously as the co-founder of Acorn Computers, responsible for the iconic BBC Microcomputer, which led to the development of ARM Holdings, now a global microprocessor giant. He was also founding director at organisations including IQ (Bio), IXI Limited, SynGenix and Advanced Displays Limited.

Hermann was awarded an honorary CBE for innovative service to the UK enterprise sector in 2001 and was made a member of the Government’s Council for Science and Technology in 2004. He has subsequently commissioned to write a report on technology and innovation in the UK by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. In 2015 the then business secretary Sajid Javid bestowed upon Dr Hauser an honorary KBE, in recognition of his valuable services to engineering and industry.

He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2012, recognising his contribution to the translation of science into business. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Royal Academy of Engineering from 2002 and holds honorary doctorates from Bath, Loughborough, Anglia Ruskin, Strathclyde, Glasgow and York universities.

In some of the most male-dominated parts of the engineering world, Jane has shown by example that women are at least as capable as men. Her work in education has been dedicated to keeping the door open behind her for future generations of engineers.

Jane Atkinson is currently Director, Cape Specialist Services part of Cape Ltd, an international leader in the provision of critical industrial services.

Brought up in Middlesbough, her career began as a sponsored engineering student with British Steel in 1990. She worked as a technical advisor at the Teesside Blast Furnace before moving into operations, managing the Cast House at Redcar. During her time in the steel industry she managed many major production units and spent five years with the company in Alabama in the USA. Jane then moved into power generation managing coal and gas fired assets for Sembcorp Utilities Ltd. During that role she was responsible for the operations of the UK’s first Biomass Power Plant.

Jane has won several awards most notably the CBI First Woman Award in Manufacturing and the prestigious Stephenson’s Award for inspiring young people in science and engineering. She is an active member of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Chair of the UK IChemE Board. Jane is also a Governor of Teesside University and an Advisory Board Member of the National Science Museum in London.

Jeremy is Chief Technology Officer at Cambridge Display Technology. He is one of the three original inventors of P-OLED, the technology used to create digital displays in devices such as TV screens, computer monitors and smart phones.

He played a major role in transforming early permutations of the invention into a fully manufacturable and marketable technology using new device architectures, materials and manufacturing processes - including the direct printing of full colour LED displays. 

Jeremy's career has also involved working with Toshiba in the UK and Japan to develop quantum electronic and opto-electronic devices. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2009.

Andy’s career in industry has involved co-founding over a dozen spin-outs and start-ups, three of which floated on stock markets. Virata floated on NASDAQ and at its peak had a market capitalisation of $5 billion.

His most prominent successes have come through RealVNC, which won the prestigious MacRobert Award in 2013, and Ubisense plc. Collectively, these two organisations have received five Queen’s Awards for Enterprise.

In academia, Andy heads the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory and is an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Hall and Corpus Christi College. Elsewhere, he served as President of the IET between 2012 and 2013, and in 2007 received a CBE for services to the computer industry.

Andy is co-founder and Chairman of pioneering remote access software developers RealVNC and is also Professor of Computer Technology at the University of Cambridge. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1996.

Sir Alan is one of the Academy’s longest-serving Fellows, with an illustrious career across the research and technology industry.

He has a PhD in Electrical engineering and has served on more than twenty company and institution boards as either an executive or non-executive director. These have ranged from start-ups to FTSE 100 companies and include Director of Research and Technology and Deputy Chief Executive of British Telecom, Chairman of WS Atkins and deputy Chairman of Experian Plc. He is currently President of the ERA Foundation.

Sir Alan has served on the British Government’s Committee for Science and Technology and the Strategic Defence Review panel, and as Chairman of both the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Engineering Council.

He is a past President of the IEE (now IET) and a Life Fellow of the IEEE (USA). He has been awarded nine honorary doctorates as well as an OBE (1987) and CBE (1995) before he was knighted in 2000.

Sir Alan was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1984.

Professor Richard Brook OBE FREng is an experienced angel investor with technology expertise in the field of measurement, instrumentation and control systems. He has over forty years of experience in developing new instrumentation and applications for use in various sectors including manufacturing, space and defence.

He was co-founder and a director of the investment company E-synergy, which invested in over a hundred startup and early stage growth companies. He is a past chairman of a number of advisory boards and committees for policy development and funding oversight in the UK’s innovation, space and academic research sectors and was until 2015 a non-executive director of NPL Management Ltd (running the UK’s National Physical Laboratory).

He is currently a board member and executive president of The Association of Innovation, Research and Technology Organisations (AIRTO) and a board director of the Satellite Finance Network.

Richard is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2007) and was appointed OBE in 2004 for services to higher education and the UK space industry.

Professor Alison Noble is the Technikos Professor of Biomedical Engineering, in the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford, and Associate Head of MPLS Division. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society (2017), the Royal Academy of Engineering (2008) and the President of the Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Interventions (MICCAI) Society, the international society in biomedical image analysis.

Alison’s research interests are in computer analysis of clinical and biological images and the development and translation into clinical practice of novel methodologies that provide new diagnostic and therapeutic image based biomarkers and software tools for image-based quantification and decision-making. Her research group works in close collaboration with clinicians and industry players. She is also a Founder and the Chief Technology Officer of a university spin-out company that is commercialising research from her laboratory (Intelligent Ultrasound Ltd).

She returned to Oxford as a University Lecturer in 1995 to set up a biomedical image analysis group. Biomedical image analysis has since grown to be the largest biomedical engineering activity in Oxford.

Alison has played a leading role in setting up the biomedical engineering undergraduate and postgraduate biomedical engineering teaching and training (MSc and CDT) programmes at Oxford over the last decade. She is a member of both the Oxford University’s Research and Education Committees (from Oct 2013), and has served or currently serves on a number of  committees of the Royal Academy of Engineering and other national organisations as well as numerous research funding agency panels.

David Gammon founded Rockspring in 2002 after 17 years of investment banking experience.

Rockspring provides advice and capital to disruptive technology companies from seed through scale up. His family are the benefactors of the JC Gammon Launchpad Award run by the Enterprise Hub.

David is a non-executive director at Raspberry Pi Trading Limited, Accesso Technology Group plc and Frontier Developments plc. He is on the Advisory Boards to IQ Capital Partners LLP and Thought Machine Limited. He is a member of the Scale Up Institute.

Eric is Professor of Micro-Engineering at Imperial College London. He is the Co-founder and Non-executive Director of Microsaic Systems plc, which develops and markets miniature mass spectrometers. During Eric’s period as Chairman of Microsaic Systems, the company was listed on the London Stock Exchange.

He has overseen more than 20 research projects which have raised a combined £14million in research funds. Eric has also been a technical advisory board member to two venture capital funds.

Eric was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal in 2011 for his research into micro-engineered devices and their commercial exploitation. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2012.