Venture Catalyst Challenge 2023
The Venture Catalyst Challenge is Imperial College London’s flagship entrepreneurial competition. Now in its 10th year, we are excited to be celebrating a “A Decade of Innovation” in 2023.
Follow the progress of the special 10th Anniversary Edition here.
Countdown to the Grand Final, 10th May 2023:
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Celebrating a Decade of Innovation
Welcome to the University Startup Competition of The Decade. Three Months. Five Tracks. £100,000.
The Venture Catalyst Challenge is an “elite” programme which enables students and alumni to develop an innovative idea for commercialisation. It takes the very best early stage ideas and gives them the exposure and acceleration they need to leave Imperial College’s eco-system and move successfully into the wider entrepreneurship world.
Over its ten year history, the VCC has demonstrated an impressive ability to identify and nurture promising founders and ventures. This year we’re delighted to welcome 25 team finalists selected from 235 entries.
Previous participants have gone on to raise over £200 million in funding and create over 750 jobs. Notable success stories include VCC alumni startup Notpla, who won the coveted Earthshot Prize for Building a Waste-Free World.
Part of the programme’s success lies in its rigorous initial scoring and selection process. Competition entries are assessed for their ability to clearly articulate the business need, what impact the start-up will have, the co-founders’ motivations for joining programme, and why their team is best placed to deliver. The highest performing submissions are reviewed by Imperial College’s IP department before being shortlisted by the Selection Committee and assigned on to the most appropriate track.
Meet This Year’s Teams Competing in Each Track to Win a Prize
This year we’re delighted to welcome 89 innovators working on diverse projects including the world’s first size adjustable prosthetic cover, a novel aerodynamic design that makes supersonic aviation and space travel cheaper and cleaner, and sustainable wave energy converters that preserve the natural beauty of the ocean.
The winning teams from each track will pitch their ideas to industry-leading judges at the Grand Final. The overall winner will receive a total prize of £30,000.
Read the teams’ profiles in more detail, learn about their business ideas and meet our ambitious founders here.
AI & Robotics
Creative & Consumer
Digital & Finance
Energy & Environment
The VCC Experience
Follow Our Innovators
Come along with us on the VCC journey! We’ll be capturing key moments as the programme unfolds and hearing from this year’s innovators as they progress through the competition towards the Track Heats and Grand Final.
10th Cohort Launch Event
We were thrilled to bring together our 10th cohort for the launch of this year’s VCC programme.
Participants were officially welcomed to the programme by Ben Mumby-Croft, Director of Entrepreneurship and introduced to Experts-in-Residence by Victoria Nicholl. VCC alumni Attic and Team Repair shared their experiences of previously taking part on the programme to help our teams prepare for the next three months ahead.
Team Culture Workshop
The 10th year of the Venture Catalyst Challenge is now in full swing! This week our participants learnt about team culture.
Natalie Pearce from The Future Kind Collective spoke on the importance of team culture, the concept of Ikigai, and ran through activities to get teams thinking about their company, the future, and how to get there!
Alumni Panel Event
This week our teams had the opportunity to hear from past VCC participants, and ask them questions about their time on the programme. What did they wish they knew back then that they know now…?
A big thank you to our Alumni for sharing their knowledge and insights:
- Dan Tang and Satya Botcha, Co-founders of Radiant Foods
- Solomia Boretksa, CEO and founder of LendoCare
- Max Munford, CEO and founder of OSSTEC
Next VCC Milestone: Track Heats
25-26th April 2023
Each Track has a Heat where competing teams pitch to a panel of judges. Think of these as our programme semi-finals. 5 Track winners will each be awarded £10,000 and proceed to take part in the VCC Grand Final.
Which teams will make it through?
Stay tuned to be the first to know!
Be Inspired
Watch Last Year’s Grand Final
We were delighted to welcome over 300 attendees to the 2022 Grand Final in the Great Hall on Imperial’s South Kensington campus. Guests gathered to hear our five track winners’ pitches and awaited the judges’ verdict on the coveted overall winner, as well as the Moonshot and Social Impact prize winner announcements. Which top teams took home the prizes? Watch the final in full to find out.
Meet The Experts
The 2023 Judging Panel
Insiya Jafferjee
CEO
Shellworks (VCC 2020 Grand Final Winner)
Insiya Jafferjee is a VCC Alumni and CEO of Shellworks, a leading biotech startup building a world where sustainable products can be created without compromise.
In reimagining nature’s packaging, Shellworks has harnessed naturally occurring microbes and developed their patent-pending material, Vivomer, which can degrade in any natural environment. Originally from Sri Lanka, Insiya holds a BSc in Product Design from Stanford University and an MA and MSc. from Royal College of Art and Imperial College. She spent her early career working at the intersection of cutting-edge research, design, and engineering at corporations including Bose, Ford Motor Company and Apple. Now based in London, Insiya is using her profound insights to build a company that intends to make plastic waste a thing of the past.
Sara Murray OBE
Entrepreneur
confused.com & Buddi
Sara Murray is the founder of the financial comparison site confused.com, which she sold to Admiral. She has gone on to create Buddi, a personal tracking device for the elderly and vulnerable.
Sara’s maxim is that entrepreneurs must always be prepared to adapt and that “You have to want to grow a business, not make a fast buck.”
Sara is also a member of the Government’s Technology Strategy Board and Entrepreneurs’ Forum, a council member at Imperial College London, and holds non-exec roles with the online retailer boohoo.com and the construction firm Travis Perkins.
Look Ahead
The Next Decade
Of Innovation
“The most powerful tool is imagination – the ability and willingness to imagine alternatives to realities as we know it, which is the first step towards making new realities possible.”
– Ursula K. Le Gin, Author
How will our next decade play out scientifically, economically, environmentally and politically? What challenges, opportunities and industry upheavals will we see? Who will be the winners of tomorrow?
Read thought-provoking predictions from innovators, experts and entrepreneurs in each of our five track areas.
AI & Robotics:
Flying cars are finally on their way. The global urban air utility market, which includes Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing vehicle (“eVTOL”) aircraft, has the potential to reach nearly $30 billion by 2030.
– Peter Diamandis
Creative & Consumer:
Inside physical stores, you will find full suites of interactive technology, enabling unimaginable levels of personalization that effectively blur the boundary between digital and physical shopping. eCommerce will have become integrated into every facet of consumers’ online lives – from Netflix to video games, virtual worlds, and, of course, social media.
– Syte
Digital & Finance:
The Web as I envisaged it, we still have not seen it yet. The future is still so much bigger than the past.
The web is for everyone and collectively we hold the power to change it. It won’t be easy. But if we dream a little and work a lot, we can get the web we want.
– Tim Berners-Lee
Energy & Environment:
Sustainable development is the pathway to the future we want for all. It offers a framework to generate economic growth, achieve social justice, exercise environmental stewardship and strengthen governance.
– Ban Ki-moon
Health & Wellbeing:
Connected medical devices have helped close the loop between patients and healthcare providers. MedTech companies have a crucial role in driving value based healthcare, helping reduce medical costs, optimise surgical performance and improve patient outcomes.
– Deloitte
Join Our Debate!
The Next Decade
Of Innovation
We are all forecasters, making daily decisions based on how we expect the future will unfold. These expectations are forecasts, and they affect the course of our lives.
But looking beyond our personal sphere to speculate about the future on a national or global scale is difficult, and that’s where collaboration comes in! How different will the world be in 2033? Join our conversation on what the next decade will bring. Let’s benefit from each other’s knowledge and diverse perspectives to help prepare for the future.
What's Your Prediction?
Send us your thoughts on the next decade and we’ll publish as many of them as possible on this page and in our E-Lab newsletter.
With Special Thanks to Our Sponsors
A huge thank you to our supporters for their valuable contribution to the Venture Catalyst Challenge.
The VCC is the largest prize fund of any UK-based university, only made possible through the financial support of our sponsors. Thanks to their generosity and commitment to backing the next generation of innovators, we are empowering participants with vital skills, exposure and acceleration to thrive beyond Imperial College in the wider commercial world.
Health & Wellbeing Track Sponsor
Digital & Finance Track Sponsor
Energy & Environment Track Sponsor
AI & Robotics Track Sponsor
Creative & Consumer Track Sponsor
Attend The 2023 Grand Final
Watch Live. Attend in Person on 10th May.
Celebrate a Decade of Innovation With Us. Secure Your Place to The VCC Grand Final Here.
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Secure Your Place. Get Your Ticket!
Don’t miss out! If you can’t make the Grand Final in person, but would still like to experience the action, let us know!
Please submit your details, and we’ll email you a link to view the final online nearer the time.
