VCC 2025 | Imperial Enterprise Lab

Venture Catalyst Challenge 2025

The Grand Final of Imperial’s flagship entrepreneurial competition took place on 6 November, marking the conclusion of this year’s programme.

Meet our finalists and take a look at how this year’s edition unfolded!

Igniting the Next Decade of Innovation

Imperial’s Startup Competition of the Year.
Three Months. Five Tracks. £100,000!

The Venture Catalyst Challenge (VCC) is more than a competition. It’s a world-class programme that empowers students and alumni to transform bold ideas into ventures with real-world impact. Designed to accelerate the very best early-stage startups, VCC provides founders with the visibility, mentorship, and resources they need to break out of Imperial’s ecosystem and scale globally.

Now in its 12th year, VCC has a proven track record of identifying and nurturing pioneering founders and ventures. For 2025, we are proud to welcome 25 exceptional teams, selected from hundreds of applications across Imperial.

A programme with transformative impact

What sets VCC apart is its rigorous selection. We assess the strength of startups’ ideas, the scale of their potential, and the drive of their founding teams. Top-performing ventures have access to Imperial’s network of industry leaders and investors and resources so they can refine their ideas before showcasing them in a high-profile final where winners are selected from all five tracks.

The results speaks for themselves. Previous winners have gone on to raise over £300 million in funding and create more than 750 jobs worldwide. Success stories include Notpla, winner of the Earthshot Prize for Building a Waste-Free World, alongside a growing list of startups tackling some of the planet’s most pressing challenges.

Our VCC 2025 Finalists

It gives us great pleasure to present the five teams selected from this year’s outstanding cohort who will be pitching their innovations to our panel of judges at the Grand Final on 06 Nov 2025.

AI & Robotics

Cardiovolt.ai

Creative & Consumer

PHLYXR

Digital & Finance

Reporti

Energy & Environment

Muju Earth

Health & Wellbeing

Arcus Dental

The 2025 Judging Panel

Nirmala Santiapillai

VP of Commercial Operations

Oxford Nanopore Technologies

Nirmala brings extensive experience from the healthcare industry, spanning programme leadership, business improvement, customer experience, and commercial strategy. Before Oxford Nanopore, she held senior roles at General Electric Healthcare, focusing on marketing, commercial strategy, and customer service, enhancing operational efficiency and customer satisfaction across global teams.

Her leadership has included building effective teams, driving process improvements, and successfully integrating business process outsourcing to streamline operational workflows.

Nirmala holds a PhD in Neurochemistry from the University of Cambridge and a BSc in Biochemistry from Imperial College London. She remains dedicated to continuous improvement and customer-focused innovation, emphasising automation and technical excellence to enhance customer experience and enable Oxford Nanopore’s growth ambitions.

Rodrigo García

Cofounder & Co CEO

Notpla

Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez is a Designer, Architect, and Inventor, with the goal of making packaging disappear. Their first product Ooho is an edible package made of seaweed that can contain water or any other liquid and had been used in several sports events like the London Marathon or Roland-Garros.

Notpla won Prince William’s £1,000,000 Earthshot Prize. On top of that Notpla won the Grand Prix in Design at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity; the World Technology Award by Fortune and TIME, the WIRED start-up of the year and the GreenTech Award.

Rodrigo is part of the Jury of the Prize Princesa de Asturias of International Cooperation. He is the 2024 European Young Leaders Spanish representative, alongside 40 other talented changemakers from across Europe, on a mission to catalyze change and work towards a more sustainable and forward-looking Europe. Rodrigo holds a double nationality Spanish and British.

Rebeca Santamaria

Director, Business & Corporate Development

Google DeepMind

Dr. Rebeca leads strategic partnerships and drives the translation of breakthrough AI technologies into impactful real-world solutions. With over a decade’s experience building industry collaborations at the intersection of research, innovation, and commercialisation, including a distinguished tenure at Imperial College London.

Rebeca is internationally recognized for advancing technology transfer, fostering startup growth, and enabling high-impact partnerships. Her academic background spans analytical chemistry and strategic business leadership, and she has earned numerous awards for her excellence and leadership in the UK’s innovation ecosystem.

She is a Registered Technology Transfer Professional (RTTP), demonstrating her expertise in commercializing research and managing intellectual property. Her work has been particularly notable in facilitating partnerships between academia and industry, including high-profile collaborations such as the Imperial-HeartFlow partnership that brought AI technology into clinical practice.

Where it began - our cohort for VCC 2025

From AI and medtech to climate innovation, sustainability, and deep tech, this year’s cohort has redefined what’s possible. Pushing boundaries, challenging industries, and building the solutions of tomorrow.

Here’s our full line-up of this year’s ventures, explore their cutting-edge business ideas, and meet the ambitious founders shaping the future here.

Our 2025 cohort