Resource finder
Inspiring reads, discounts, perks, handy tools, info on entrepreneurial programmes and much more. All with you in mind.
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Startup area
Nearly all the resources are free to access and you’ll find all our recommended books in the ELab library.
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How To Build a Billion Dollar Startup
An exclusive conversation with Matt Robinson (GoCardless), George Hadjigeorgiou (ZOE), Vanessa Neeff and Kyriakos Eleftheriou (Terra API ).
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Newsletters

Octopus Ventures – Resources
Read useful guides, blog posts, reports and stories about our portfolio founders
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Startup Tools

Innovator Founder Visa
The Innovator Founder Visa route is for entrepreneurs who are looking to establish a business in the UK.
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Startup Tools

How to Create an Elevator Pitch
What is an elevator pitch, and how can it help your career? An elevator pitch—also known as an elevator speech—is a quick synopsis of your background, experience, and purpose.
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Newsletters

Startups Magazine
A digital and print magazine helping tech startups connect the dots on their entrepreneurial journeys.
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Funding Advice

𝗩𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝘂𝗲 𝗗𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗲
The "Venture Capital Due Diligence Questionnaire" offers a detailed framework to help founders and investors navigate this phase with confidence.
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Startup Tools

Set up a limited company: step by step
How to set up a limited company, appoint directors and shareholders or guarantors, and register for tax.
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Startup Tools

Biorender
Pre-made icons and templates from more than 30 fields of life sciences. Great for making pitch decks and websites.
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Newsletters

Gary’s Guide SF Bay Area
A global resource and community of professionals that are interested in startups, entrepreneurship, social media and technology focused on the SF Bay Area.
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Newsletters

Gary’s Guide NYC
A global resource and community of professionals that are interested in startups, entrepreneurship, social media and technology focused on the NYC Bay Area.
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Networking

Konfer
An intelligent brokerage platform for UK universities and businesses. An efficient way to navigate around resources, technology and innovation capabilities that exist in the UK innovation eco-system.
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Newsletters

Finerva – The Founder’s Bulletin
Refreshingly simple financial insights to help your business soar.
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Startup Tools

How to Build a Startup (Free Course)
Learn what it takes to build a successful startup using the Customer Development process, where entrepreneurs "get out of the building" to gather and iterate on feedback.
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Startup Tools

Business Model Canvas
The Business Model Canvas is a strategic management and entrepreneurial tool. It allows you to describe, design, challenge, invent, and pivot your business model.
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Startup Tools

Y Combinator Library
Watch videos, listen to podcasts, and read essays for startup founders.
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Books

Venture Deals
A fundamental book for those working in the VC industry and anyone involved in the fundraising process - from entrepreneurs to lawyers and accountants.
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Startup Tools

PitchBook
PitchBook delivers data, research and technology covering the private capital markets, including venture capital, private equity and M&A transactions.
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Books

The Startup Fundraising MBA
Secure investment with the 6 pillars of fundraising. Place yourself in the investor spotlight with this step-by-step guide.
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Startup Tools

Investopedia
Investopedia provides investment dictionaries, advice, reviews, ratings, and comparisons of financial products, such as securities accounts.
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Funding Opportunities

ShipShape
A Search Engine that lets you search individual investors at VC firms, portfolio companies and investment entities.
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Newsletters

The Operating Table
Breaking Startups down into their component parts to show you how to build for success.
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Networking

Startup Grind
Startup Grind is the world's largest community of startups, founders, innovators, and creators. Events and opportunities for founders around the world.
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Funding Advice

Novabook
The accountant for startups. Support on; getting SEIS/EIS assurance, making your first hires & setting up share option plans, R&D Tax Claims support and MUCH more! Link to partner discount.
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Funding Advice

Grants and IP
Winning a grant is exciting and can supercharge your business. A grant can be an important source of funds, but it comes with responsibilities. What are key IP considerations with respect to grants?
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Training

LinkedIn Learning
Students and staff at Imperial College London have free access to the extensive library and currently our graduates can access material for one year after completion of studies.
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Startup Accelerators

MedTech SuperConnector
Dedicated to empowering medical technology innovators to develop and scale impactful medical technologies.
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Startup Accelerators

AI SuperConnector
A 6-month cohort-based programme supporting early career researchers to launch high-potential startups applying artificial intelligence to solve real-world problems.
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Newsletters

D/srupt
D/srupt is Imperial’s annual magazine for innovators and entrepreneurs. Filled with engaging content, including interviews, features, case studies and ‘how to’s’.
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Startup Tools

BaseTemplates
Templates to help startups raise money and scale their company.
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Newsletters

Innovate UK news
Keep up to date with funding, news and events, and a weekly newsletter.
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Networking

Enterprise Nation
Enterprise Nation is a community of small businesses and advisers that shortcut your route to trusted business support.
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Startup Tools

Finding your first space: a guide for startups
This guide covers what you should consider before committing to a space, from both a landlord’s and startup’s perspective.
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Networking

Imperial-X
A co-located collaborative environment for research, education, and entrepreneurship across artificial intelligence, data science and digital technologies based at our White City Campus
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Incubators & Networks

Imperial White City Incubator
Based at Imperial’s White City Campus, the Incubator offers flexible laboratory space that’s ideal for new and growing deep tech companies, for a three-year incubation period.
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Startup Accelerators

Undaunted – The Greenhouse
We support the growth of early-stage (“pre-seed”) startups who are passionate about developing high-quality, scalable solutions to tackle climate change.
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Startup Tools

Goblin Tools
A free, AI-powered app that claims to be designed to help neurodivergent people with tasks they find overwhelming or difficult.
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Networking

Community Collider Events
Join Imperial Enterprise Lab's monthly community get together where students from different departments and faculties across the college can come together, collide, and form interesting new pairings a
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Startup Accelerators

Northern Data AI Accelerator
Designed to put our compute power in your hands, Northern Data Group’s AI Accelerator is an exciting opportunity for the world’s most innovative startups.
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Incubators & Networks

KQ Labs – The Francis Crick Institute
KQ Labs is a tailored five-month accelerator programme devoted to helping start-ups transform healthcare through data-driven solutions.
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Startup Tools

Figma
A collaborative web application for interface design. Figma focuses on user interface and user experience design, with an emphasis on real-time collaboration.
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Startup Tools

Stripe
Need payment software for your e-commerce websites/mobile app? Get £15,000 in Stripe payment processing fees waived and discounted Stripe Atlas incorporation.
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Startup Tools

Hubspot
Money off Hubspot's suite of software products for inbound marketing, sales, and customer service.
Get 90% off year 1, 50% off in the second year and 25% off ongoing.
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Podcast

Masters of Scale – Podcast
On Masters of Scale, iconic business leaders share lessons and strategies that have helped them grow the world's most fascinating companies.
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Startup Tools

Notion
A productivity and note-taking web application. Imperial startups, email [email protected] for an exclusive partner discount code.
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Startup Tools

Imperial Hackspace
At Hackspace you'll find rapid prototyping, modelling and fabrication spaces, as well as the latest equipment to help you bring your idea to life.
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Training

British Library Business & IP Centre
We support small business owners, entrepreneurs, inventors and anyone with a business idea. Offering insights and access to free resources, training and events - both online and in-person - we're here
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Funding Advice

Grant Funding Strategies
Winning a grant is exciting and can supercharge your business. A grant can be an important source of funds, but it comes with responsibilities. So, where's a good place to start?
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Startup Tools

Miro
A digital collaboration platform designed to facilitate remote and distributed team communication and project management.
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Newsletters

Considered Capital
Whether you're applying for grants, exploring debt & equity or raising innovative funding we can help explore the full range of options and find the right route for you.
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Funding Advice

Grant Writing Tips
Winning a grant is exciting and can supercharge your business. A grant can be an important source of funds, but it comes with responsibilities. What should you look out for when compiling a bid?
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Funding Advice

Grant Funding Risks
Winning a grant is exciting and can supercharge your business. A grant can be an important source of funds, but it comes with responsibilities.
So, what are the key risks attached to grant funding?
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Funding Advice

Why Apply for Grants?
Winning a grant is exciting and can supercharge your business. A grant can be an important source of funds, but it comes with responsibilities.
So, why apply for a grant?
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Startup Tools

Biorender
Pre-made icons and templates from more than 30 fields of life sciences. Great for making pitch decks and websites.
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Startup Tools

The Business Model Canvas
Globally recognised software that allows you to describe, design, challenge, invent, and pivot your business model.
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Startup Tools

Strategyzer
Silicon Valley originals, Alexander Osterwalder & David J. Bland have built this platform to help entrepreneurs build their company. Check out the masterclasses, books and canvases to get you started.
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Startup Tools

Odin
A free resource for founders to discover and contact investors anywhere.
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Startup Tools

Landscape
A one-stop shop for founder-friendly tools including investor lists, VC reviews and partner discounts. You can also showcase your venture to potential invest and receive/offer help to fellow founders.
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Startup Tools

Mentimeter
A great tool for creating interactive presentations, interactive polls, quizzes and surveys available to all Imperial students, staff and alumni. (Alumni can get an Imperial email address to access.)
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Startup Tools

Mural
Mural enables innovative teams to think and collaborate visually to solve problems. A great tool for collaborating with your team, especially when working remotely!
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Startup Tools

Konfer
Find knowledge, funding opportunities, R&D projects, businesses and opportunities to collaborate in one of the UK’s largest searchable databases.
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Startup Tools

Google Analytics
Free tools that help you analyse data for your business' website all in one place, so you can make smarter decisions.
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Startup Tools

Google Forms
Create a survey, target respondents and generate statistically significant results in just days. Great for early stage customer discovery!
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Startup Tools

Value Proposition Canvas
A great tool that you use to help you understand your customers and their motivation, pains, and gains, and your offering in that context.
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Startup Tools

Bridge
Scale your company faster and avoid mistakes with Bridge. All they need is some basic information about their business. In return you’ll get a reports on how your company compares to others
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Training

How-to Talks
Check out our past talks, where our expert speakers cover all kinds of startup-related subjects from protecting your data to dealing with difficult people and resilience.
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Training

Udacity Courses
Go beyond academic learning and develop core skills with online courses that will help you wherever you go.
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Training

Food Standards Agency
Free online course by the Food Standards Agency with the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department of Health.
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Training

EdX
Free access to more than 2,000 online courses from 140 leading institutions worldwide including Harvard, MIT and Berkeley.
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Job Boards

Work In Startups
The home of UK startup jobs has tons of listings across all kinds of organisations and roles.
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Job Boards

Sifted Job Board
Connecting the Sifted Community with the best jobs in European Startups and Innovators.
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Funding Advice

Natwest Entrepreneur Hub
Natwest have a funding tool box with everything you need to know about financing your startup. The funding checklist is especially helpful in making sure you’re fully prepared when the time comes.
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Funding Advice

EmpowerRD
Want to get to grips with the wide. range of funding available? EmpowerRD have done the hard work for you! Check out this comprehensive guide on all types of startup funding in the UK.
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Funding Opportunities

British Design Fund
The British Design Fund is unique in supporting, mentoring and investing in well-designed purpose-led product businesses exclusively.
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Funding Opportunities

Gov.uk
Use the Government website’s startup finance tool to search for regional and national funding opportunities. You can filter by funding type, industry and business stage to find your best option.
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Funding Opportunities

EIC Accelerator
The EIC Accelerator is a funding programme offering support to startups/SMEs with a innovative, game changing product, service or business model that could create new markets/disrupt existing ones.
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Funding Opportunities

Innovate UK
Innovate UK is the UK’s innovation agency and part of UK Research and Innovation, a non-departmental public body funded by grant-in-aid from the UK Government.
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Incubators & Networks

South East Health Technology Alliance
SEHTA provides business support to its members who represent health technology SMEs, health professionals, care providers and academia. And it’s free to join!
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Incubators & Networks

Indie Bio
Indie Bio’s mission is to turn scientists into planet-saving, life changing entrepreneurs. It’s the world’s first accelerator for startups that use biology to solve the world’s largest problems.
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Startup Accelerators

Y Combinator
Twice a year Y Combinator invest $500,000 per company in a large number of startups. They work intensively with the companies for three months, to get them into the best possible shape.
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Startup Accelerators

Mathworks
MathWorks Accelerator helps startups advance their development and ELab startups can get technical support and guidance from domain experts, plus free access to industry-proven software.
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Startup Accelerators

Creative Destruction Lab
Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) is a nonprofit organisation that delivers an objectives-based program for massively scalable, seed-stage, science- and technology-based companies.
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Newsletters

Strictly VC
Information on the VC scene in Silicon Valley and more!
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Newsletters

Sifted
In-depth reporting on startups – backed by the Financial Times.
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Books

Talking to Humans
Giff Constable’s practical guide to structuring and running effective customer interviews – an indispensable skill for vetting and improving any new startup or innovation.
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Books

Zero to One: Notes on Startups
PayPal Founder, Peter Thiel's books shows how exploring uncharted frontiers and exploring new inventions are your routes to success.
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Books

The Unicorn’s Shadow
Ethan Mollick dispels the dangerous myths that hold back startups, founders and investors.
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Books

Think Again
For anyone who wants to create a culture of learning and exploration, this book by Adam Grant is a great place to start.
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Books

Running Lean
Ash Maurya offers a strategy for achieving a product/market fit for your venture.
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Books

Four Steps to Epiphany
The Godfather of lean, Steve Blank’s bestselling classic that launched 10,000 startups and new corporate ventures.
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Books

The Mom Test
Rob Fitzgerald explains the best way to conduct customer interviews that don’t involve asking your mum!
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Books

Where To Play
Marc Gruber and Sharon Tal explain how to identify, evaluate and focus on the right marketing opportunities.
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Books

Testing Business Ideas
David J Bland and Alexander Osterwalder practical guide to increasing the success of any venture with rapid experimentation.
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Books

The Founder’s Pocket Guides
Easy-to-read guides by entrepreneur, Stephen R Poland that cover the financial basics.
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Startup Accelerators

Techstars
Techstars chooses 500+ early-stage companies to join one of their 3-month, accelerator programmes. It invests $120K & provides hands-on mentorship plus lifetime access to the Techstars network.
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Books

The Lean Startup
Learn about what your customers really want from Eric Reis!
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Newsletters

Eat, Sleep, Work, Repeat
Sunday Times bestselling author, presenter and culture coach, Bruce Daisley bringing evidence and facts on how to make the workplace a better place.
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Job Boards

Imperial Career Service
Looking for world-class STEM talent? (I.e. Imperial students and recent alumni) Post your vacancy on JobsLive by Imperial Careers Service.
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Startup Accelerators

Geovation Accelerator Programme
The Geovation Accelerator is a uniquely founder-friendly programme designed to help entrepreneurs build their business and help them solve real world challenges using geospatial and property data.
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