The problem

Balancing electrical supply with consumption is a challenge for power grids. An added difficulty is maintaining the balance across different timescales – from milliseconds to seasons. Sustainable grid management solutions need to manage intermittent supply from sources, including renewables. New technologies with long-term durability are needed to manage these demands.

The solution

Gyrotricity Ltd, a spin out from City, University of London, has developed a new technology for kinetic energy storage. . The technology is based on a flywheel, a steel rotor that stores energy that can be converted to electrical energy and released quickly on demand.

Gyrotricity’s flywheel is made using thin layers of laminated steel. As a result, it is more durable and safer than single-mass steel flywheels, as any potential damage can be easily contained. The company has also designed an electrical motor generator that lasts for up to 25 years, and is used for transmitting and retrieving power from the flywheel. Combined, the systems provide a lightweight and cost-effective solution to energy storage in the grid.

The Gyrotricity flywheel has two to four times greater energy density than conventional steel flywheels. High power, at the megawatt scale, can be provided by having flywheels connected in banks in containers. Gyrotricity is currently designing and testing these in the laboratory and at customer sites.

Professor Keith Pullen, Chief Technical Officer, holds the patents for the laminated flywheel technology. He draws on over twenty years of expertise in the field as he supports Gyrotricity in bringing its solutions to market.

Traction

• 2017:  Rail Safety and Standards Board funded development of the Gyrotricity flywheels in rail.
• 2018: Awarded funding from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Energy Entrepreneurs Fund.

Professor Pullen was awarded a 2018 Enterprise Fellowship to support him in refining Gyrotricity’s flywheel technology and bringing it to market.

The problem

Simulations can provide insights and analyses that transform and optimise businesses across sectors. Yet creating simulations is a highly specialised task that requires expensive software and hardware as well as expertise in network analysis, physics and software engineering. This means that many companies find it challenging to access.

The solution

Slingshot Simulations aims to make simulation and data analytics more accessible through its user-friendly simulation service. The automated, integrated cloud-based service is a fast, cost-effective route to accurate simulation.

Slingshot uses a patent-pending optimisation technique for automated analysis of big data. The technology is based on over a decade of research and development, in close collaboration with industry. It can quickly handle large amounts of data to create real-time simulations for use in forecasting and analysis.

Dr David McKee was closely involved in the development of the technology as the company’s Lead Technological Architect while at the University of Leeds. As CTO, David leads the company as it extends its scalable platform for companies in sectors including logistics, real estate, city planning, sustainable design and insurance.

The insights gained by more cost-effective, readily-accessible simulation services have been shown to improve clients’ market share by 2% to 3%. With such potential to influence business, Slingshot simulations is well placed to impact the global simulation market, currently valued at $6.5 billion.

Traction

• 2013 to 2018 – Funding awarded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Jaguar Land Rover for research and development.
• 2017 – Collaboration with IMC Business Architectures, Canada a leading company in artificial intelligence solutions.

Dr McKee was awarded a 2018 Enterprise Fellowship to further develop University of Leeds spin-out, Slingshot Simulations. 

The problem

Over 70% of the world’s coastlines experience erosion, which is increasing at an exponential rate due to climate change. Coral reefs provide valuable ecosystems that naturally prevent this erosion, but these are also rapidly being lost globally. 

The solution

Zyba Ltd has developed CCell, a technology that uses wave energy to create artificial coral reefs in any shape or size. This can provide a long-term, ecological solution to coastal erosion, restoring fisheries and enhancing tourism in the process by creating new scuba dive sites.

CCell technology is an ultra-lightweight energy converter that uses ocean waves to generate electricity. This is used to power BioRock – a process of electrolysis that makes sea minerals form around a steel structure, effectively creating a reef. The process enables corals to grow up to five times faster than they would naturally.

Many coastal regions such as those in Indonesia, the Dominican Republic and Mexico rely heavily on tourist income. Governments and the hotel industry absorb the high costs of coastal protection and many current solutions are both temporary and, in some cases, can increase erosion rates over time.

CCell has gained significant interest in Mexico where local partners have been supporting pilot projects to demonstrate the benefits in this key market. Future plans include scaling up the technology to increase access to a market that is valued at £16 billion globally. Tara Massoudi leads Business Development at Zyba Ltd and is responsible for developing the partnerships that will support the growth of the company and the implementation of its core technology, CCell.

Traction

• 2015: Innovate UK and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council award of £1.8 million to accelerate the development of CCell.
• 2018: First pilot unit installed in a test site in Mexico. 
• 2019: Zyba Ltd enters a collaboration with the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas Mexico to explore the potential impact of CCell and validate the technology. 

In 2018, Tara Massoudi was awarded an 1851 Royal Commission Enterprise Fellowship to support Zyba as it expands and brings its technology to market. Zyba Ltd has also been supported by Innovate UK as well as the EU Commission as part of a Horizon 2020 project.

The problem

During ‘last mile’ journeys, vaccines can be exposed to temperatures that are too high or too low, meaning they arrive damaged.

The World Health Organization estimates that between two to three million children die each year from vaccine-preventable disease. In 2018, 20 million children still lacked basic vaccinations. Current vaccine carriers last for hours whereas ‘last-mile’ journeys can take up to seven days. The wastage can be up to 85%, which increases when journeys exceed the current vaccine carrier’s capacity. 

The solution

Ideabatic’s solutions target the last-mile cold-chain issues with SMILE, a smart last-mile vaccine cooling system. It helps to preserve vaccines so that they remain effective in the last few miles of delivery and arrive safely.

Vaccines are often transported by foot, bike, canoe or donkey. ‘Last-mile’ journeys can last up to seven days with little infrastructure or electricity available to help preserve vaccines. SMILE has a last-mile capacity of three to five days without external power and can carry vaccines for over 500 people. Using the technology requires minimal training, supporting its aim to reduce vaccine wastage to below 5%.

The technology keeps vaccines within the right temperature range without an external power source. It uses a self-closing door that minimises human error and heat damage, and an extraction system that ensures that remaining vaccines are not exposed to excess heat when others are removed.

Kitty Liao has over ten years’ experience in multi-disciplinary system design and low-temperature research and development. She is leading Ideabatic as it conducts field trials in Africa and prepares for launch in 2020. The startup works with field experts and the Centre for Global Equality, and welcomes collaboration to accelerate the launch of SMILE. 

Traction

• 2019: Awarded the Expo 2020 Dubai Scale-up Grant from Expo Live, Expo 2020 Dubai.
• 2019: Awarded IP Audit Award from UK Intellectual Property.
• 2018: Awarded the Expo 2020 Dubai Innovation Impact Grant from Expo Live, Expo 2020 Dubai.
• 2017: Awarded the MassChallenge UK, Viiv Healthcare Startup Award.
• 2016: Awarded the First Prize in the Next Generation Healthcare Innovation Challenge from the Institute of Global Health.
• 2016: Awarded an IP award from Imperial Innovations.

Kitty Liao was awarded a 2018 Enterprise Fellowship to support her work in refining the technology, trialling its use and bringing it to market.

The problem

Large scale farming operations have well established methods for converting farm waste into renewable fuel and natural fertiliser. Small farms need access to scaled-down, efficient waste management solutions to make sustainable processes more widespread.

The solution

EcoNomad delivers small scale technology for sustainable resource management and agricultural waste reduction. Its sustainable, affordable technologies enable waste recycling and management, empowering smallholding farms and rural communities to be more self-sufficient.

EcoNomad’s range of solutions include a biogas and nutrient recovery system, known as the BioNomad™, that can be used on small farms to turn agricultural waste into biofuels for heating and an enriched liquid fertiliser. The technology was tested and demonstrated to add value during a four-year trial at a farm in London.

Another solution is EcoNomad’s patented technology for low-cost solar water pumping and pasteurisation, which works using passive thermal principles, without the need for electricity or moving parts.

Dr Ilan Adler identified a need for scaled down technologies during work in Mexico that resulted in him setting up a non-governmental organisation and co-founding a social enterprise to promote eco-technologies in rural communities. This inspired later research in the UK that led to the development of EcoNomad.

Following the success of its pilot, EcoNomad has further trials planned in the UK and Mexico, aiming to bring its first products to market in 2019.

Traction

• 2019: London Business School Launchpad programme awarded to spin-out.
• 2019: European Regional Development Fund grant awarded in collaboration with University College London (UCL) and Rothamsted Research (agricultural institution in the UK) for full-scale prototype testing.
• 2018: Support and mentoring provided by UCL Innovation and Enterprise. 
• 2018: Santander Research Catalyst Award granted for early-stage solar technology testing in collaboration with Centre for Scientific Research of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.
• 2017: Biogas prototypes in Surrey Docks Farm awarded the UCL Provost’s Public Engagement Award.

Dr Adler was awarded a 2018 Enterprise Fellowship to support him in making sustainable solutions for agricultural resource and waste management more widely available to smallholdings in the UK and Europe.

The fourth industrial revolution is changing every element of enterprise. Companies that innovate throughout the value chain, such as Tesla or Dollar Shave Club, are achieving breakthrough growth, 

While sales and marketing, product development, service and support and back office functions have seen significant digitisation and investment, manufacturing has been left behind. Often not integrated to the wider enterprise and with significant investments in legacy equipment, manufacturing has historically been a very hard environment in which to scale change. There is now a huge opportunity to drive digitisation and innovation in the supply chain to gain a competitive edge. 

George is founder of Make-Sense, which is building on five years of industrial Internet of Things experience in the LPG sector. Make-Sense provides a data collection and analytics platform that empowers the whole supply chain from the shop floor to the top floor to drive radical efficiency and growth improvements.

Make-Sense is working with several of the world’s largest consumer goods brands to radically transform how they can leverage manufacturing as a core part of their growth and efficiency strategies.

The problem

Wearable electronics are often rigid and limited in flexibility because of how they are manufactured. Wearable components often do not bend and stretch with the clothes that they are added to and can have issues with durability, especially when washed.

The solution

Textile Two Dimensional is a University of Cambridge spin-out that makes electronic inks using graphene, which can be printed directly onto textiles. These inks can be layered to create bespoke, functional and wearable electronics. The electronics, and graphene’s electrical and thermal conductivity properties, are integrated into the textiles while remaining flexible and washable. They can be comfortably worn and re-used several times, meaning that they are also cost-effective and environmentally friendly.

The company is working closely with end-product manufacturers to explore development for a range of smart wearables in areas such as personal health, fitness and wellbeing, protection and fashion.

Dr Tian Carey initially explored the potential for the technology during his PhD at the University of Cambridge’s EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Graphene Technology. As a result, Textile Two Dimensional continues to work closely with the Cambridge Graphene Centre to promote innovative research with an emphasis on application.

Traction

• 2018: Textile Two Dimensional and Cambridge Enterprise collaborate to accelerate adoption to market.

Dr Carey was awarded a 2018 Enterprise Fellowship to support him as the team at Textile Two Dimensional grows and the company develops from an ink manufacturer to a wearable systems manufacturer.

CEO and Founder, Snap Vision

Building on a background in computer vision, Jenny Griffiths developed Snap Vision, a company offering visual search-based solutions for the fashion retail and publishing industry.

Snap Vision fuses visual search with fashion to improve the shopping experience. Its solutions turn any image into the start of a search, allowing its users to ‘shop the look’ in a magazine or the real world, and instantly learn more or discover similar alternatives.

The technology combines mathematical rulesets and deep learning algorithms to understand user preferences, including colour, shape and pattern, making it easier for consumers to find items that they want. This results in a better shopping experience and helps retailers to increase conversion rates, improve customer engagement and generate additional revenue.

Jenny, CEO and Founder, leads product development at Snap Vision while also setting a strategy for sales and fundraising. As an SME Leader since 2017, Jenny has benefited from training at the London Business School alongside mentoring support. This has helped her strengthen skills for leading a growing business.

Since receiving the award, Jenny has developed a number of strategic partnerships and successfully secured additional equity investment. This will support Jenny’s goal to rapidly scale the company’s sales cycle in its next phase of growth.

The World Health Organization estimates that there are nearly one million preventable neonatal deaths each year. Keeping the infant warm could save thousands of newborns each day. However, most incubators are too large, complicated and expensive for universal use.

James Roberts became aware of the problem of pre-term deaths in a documentary while studying product design and engineering. He co-founded mOm Incubators Ltd to create a solution, and led the strategic development of a lightweight, collapsible neonatal incubator that maintains a regulated thermal environment for newborns to thrive in.

James is the CEO of mOm and the innovation has won numerous awards. In 2019, he became an SME Leader and says that the programme came at the right time to help the company. “The coaching has allowed me to work through a particularly challenging time for the business and we’ve come out stronger for it.”

The company has recently raised over £1 million in development funding and is preparing clinical investigations while applying for CE marking. In 2021, mOm will start its commercial evaluation phase, aiming to go to market soon after.

James uses storytelling to help innovative businesses reap the rewards of putting purpose at the heart of their business. Ranked in The Drum’s top 10 UK marketing influencers, he is a published author (Humanizing B2B), mentor and speaker. He’s passionate about helping technology and engineering companies achieve their potential to change the world for good. 

James started out working in tech before moving into marketing, as he felt there was a real gap in the industry’s understanding of the fundamentals and potential of technology. After a prestigious grad role at Saatchi and Saatchi he joined Tidalwave in its newly formed strategy department, which shortly thereafter was ranked in the Financial Times’ Fasttrack top 50 fastest growing privately owned companies in the UK at the time. In two of his four years there he was recognised as the agency’s MVP. 

He ran award-winning agency Mason Zimbler - recognised as ‘UK Agency of the Year’ by B2B Marketing, and then successfully sold it to a US marketing giant. 

As Co-Founder of Rooster Punk, he helps ambitious companies achieve sustainable growth and profitability through a more human and meaningful approach to the way they build their brand. Rooster Punk works with startups like Currencycloud (now a unicorn), scale-ups, VCs and platforms like Crowdcube as well as corporates such as Tata and Samsung. 

James is also an advisor, mentor and investor in several other businesses and charities. 

Lisa has been building productive teams, driving change and helping people get organised for twenty-five years, working in multi-national corporates and investment banks before starting her own coaching business in 2017. She has extensive experience of hiring, managing and retaining great people and now works with founders and business owners across multiple sectors and industries to help them create inclusive cultures and strong, diverse teams.

Lisa is the bestselling author of The REAL Entrepreneur: How to simplify, grow and enjoy your business, and believes passionately that people management is a core skill for today’s entrepreneur. From her experience working with fast-growing businesses, she’s learned that while you can build a product without a team, it’s impossible to build a business without understanding how to build an inclusive culture and get the best from a diverse group of people. As an operational business coach, Lisa’s focus is always on the fundamental building blocks of business: people and processes. 

Professor Norman Apsley OBE FREng recently retired from 18 years as founding Chief Executive of Catalyst Inc (formerly Northern Ireland Science Park), steering the organisation from idea to reality. The NI Science Park was a key first step to transform the near derelict H&W shipyard into the innovation district for Belfast. He had spent the previous two decades at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (now QinetiQ Malvern), where he had researched a wide variety of microwave and optical devices, publishing some 70 scientific papers and patents during his scientific career. He joined management in 1990, rising to Director Electronics and Site Director for the Malvern cluster in the then Defence Research and Evaluation Agency by 1995.

In 2011, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, just as he finished his term as Vice-President (Business and Innovation) of the Institute of Physics. He has been an active Enterprise Committee member from the beginning and continues to contribute to its various programmes as reviewer, mentor and on steering groups, most lately the SME Leaders’ Award.

Norman also supports the international work of the Academy. In 2018, he became Chair of the Academy’s Newton-funded project, Leaders in Innovation Fellowships (LIF), which works in all 16 Newton Fund countries. Alongside in-country partners, LIF helps innovators with technology to tackle their country’s sustainable development goals launch startups. Over the past few years, LIf fellows have been built into a thousand strong, peer-to-peer support group across the world.

At home, Norman chairs the Local Economic Development Company serving South and East Antrim and consults occasionally for both public and private sector. In 2012, Norman was awarded an OBE for his contributions to science and economic development. In 2019, the honorary degree of Doctor of Science (Econ Sci) was conferred by Queens University Belfast. In the same year, he was awarded the Max Rainey Medal for service to the Polymer Industry of Northern Ireland. He is looking forward to Belfast becoming the first (of many) spokes to the Enterprise Hub.

Benedikt started his entrepreneurial journey during his undergraduate and has since built multiple companies across renewable energy, enterprise software, deep tech, drug discovery, and healthcare. As an experienced entrepreneur, he has raised millions in venture funding, scaled winning teams across multiple geographies, and closed over 100 deals, including with some of the largest global organisations.

Benedikt also supports several early stage companies, where he helps with fundraising, company strategy and founder journeys. He has mentored more than 50 early stage companies, many during a trip across the African continent.

In his latest venture, Sanome, aims to build a human digital twin to help people understand and maintain their health.

Lavaniya currently works as a Marketing Partner at bp Launchpad, where she serves as a strategic and tactical marketing advisor for portfolio companies.

Though her expertise and experience cover brand marketing, sales enablement and to marketing automation, she is most passionate about content, creative campaigns, and implementing blue ocean strategy. Whether the budget is small, big or non-existent, Lavaniya is able to adapt and utilise available resources to their highest potential and counts herself lucky to have learnt her craft through small failures rather than big successes.

After emigrating to Sweden, Lavaniya started her own media production company at the age of 21. She worked on feature films that never saw the light of day, TV programmes that did, and has produced around 2000 educational YouTube videos for a charity that teaches mathematics after school.

Lavaniya has worked with a diverse range of clients and businesses, spanning private and public sectors, and has lived in six countries across four continents.

After completing her MBA at HEC Paris, she worked in eSports (Fnatic), SaaS, and Telecommunications (at Croatia’s first unicorn company, Infobip) before jumping into the new world of Energy and tackling the energy transition. Outside of work, she’s writing her novel, participating in charity runs, and volunteering as a Trustee at the RSPCA in North London.

Former Inaugural Chair of the Enterprise Committee and a long-standing Academy Fellow, Ian Shott CBE FREng has played a prominent role in establishing the Enterprise Hub. His track record of helping businesses in the engineering and life science sectors transform their approach and improve their vision, ambition, business models and enterprise value is an invaluable resource.

Ian is the Founder and former Executive Chair of contract pharmaceutical development and manufacturing company ARCINOVA, which he sold to Quotient Sciences in February 2021 and continues as Senior Advisor to the board. Ian is also the Managing Director at investment and advisory firm Shott Trinova. Prior to his specialist investment work at Shott Trinova, Ian was the founder and CEO of Excelsyn, which was sold to an American multinational in 2010. Earlier in his career he held numerous senior executive positions at multinational life science companies across the globe.

Ian has a wealth of experience with major industry bodies. He is formerly the Chair of the UK government’s Leadership Forum for Industrial Biotechnology and a Governing Board Member of Innovate UK. Ian is also Visiting Professor at Oxford, Nottingham and Newcastle universities.

Read Ian's blog about the Hub's new home.

Roy Williamson has been helping companies see how their new innovations can disrupt markets for over 20 years.

For the past six years has been successfully helping early stage companies identify and define their strengths, enhance their uniqueness and develop their storylines to engage investors. Roy’s background is in engineering and cleantech and since 2013, he’s been supporting SMEs and entrepreneurs across a broad area of technologies and innovative business models.

Roy is an aeronautical engineer and started his career at Alstom, developing algorithms and models to estimate hardware costs of power generation gas turbines based purely on, often novel, thermodynamic cycles. He has assessed innovation ecosystems of the UK, published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. He has also co-authored guides to support technology developers in the UK automotive sector assess technology readiness levels and help those in the biofuels sector to review pathways for second generation biofuels. He’s appraised novel technology solutions for blue-chip clients, developed proof of concepts and carried out due diligence activities to support investor decision making. He is passionate about the UK and knowledge-intensive companies, from software to deeptech.

Roy is Head of Origination at the Department for International Trade with relationships across the department’s teams, government and the UK’s innovation and investment ecosystem.

Formerly the UK Innovation Director for Atkins, Elspeth is the CEO and Founder of IAND, a digital platform that helps major enterprises manage multiple suppliers. 

Initially graduating as a chemist, Elspeth later turned her hand to transport and urban design, demonstrating business and technical leadership on over 100 transport planning projects both nationally and around the world.

Elspeth chairs the Enterprise Hub’s Innovators Network and is a judge for the Hub’s Launchpad Competition. She is also a member of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

In 2017, Elspeth was awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her services to Engineering and Enterprise. 

James Ashe first graduated in electronics and electrical engineering from the University of Glasgow. His postgraduate education was sponsored by The General Electric Company and he spent five years as Principal Research Engineer at the GEC-Marconi Research Centre. His research interests included: high-power, high-performance VLSI structures and devices, monolithic microwave integrated circuits and electronic interconnection and packaging.

He then joined Cambridge-based Anamartic (A Tandem Computer and Fujitsu Company) working on fault tolerant WSI (Wafer Scale Integration) devices. Jim was one of the first employees of Xaar PLC and was heavily involved in IP Licensing and fundamental in developing Xaar’s microfabrication facility on the Cambridge Science Park. He helped found Intense Photonics (a spin out based on IP in the field of quantum well intermixing - owned by the University of Glasgow) where he led the commercial activities. Intense Photonics raised over £56 million in private venture funding. Prior to joining the University of Edinburgh School of Informatics as Director of Commercialisation and Industry Engagement, he led the commercial activities in IP Licensing at the commercial arm of DSTL (Defence Scientific and Technical Laboratories). Jim is also the Director of Innovation at the Bayes Centre – the University of Edinburgh's innovation hub for data science and artificial intelligence.