How was 2022 for you? Eventful, most likely, and it’s not over yet. Here’s hoping the last few weeks of this tumultuous year bring only pleasant surprises.
With the year winding down, it’s a good time to remember the highlights. For all of us at Capital Enterprise, 2022 has been incredibly busy and productive with many new programmes launching. It’s been capped off by notable successes, like seeing OneTech win a Social Impact in Enterprise Award and revealing the SY Tech 100, our report on the astonishing growth of the South Yorkshire startup scene.
Read on for some highlights from the past 12 months!
In November, we unveiled the South Yorkshire Tech 100 at a summit in Barnsley, shining a spotlight on the region where our TEAM SY project is headquartered. The report highlights the South Yorkshire region’s strength and showcases the startups driving its growth. The report reveals that funding has more than doubled in the past four years, and the top 100 companies listed employ 4,000 people and have raised £720 million in funding. Download the full report here.
The P4 Precision Medicine Accelerator held a Demo Day featuring nine startups ranging from genomics to mental health and AI-driven healthcare. This year’s cohort was exceptionally strong and there’s lots of good news in the pipeline about upcoming fundraises and new product launches – stay tuned for more news from our medtech programme in 2023. Read more about the Demo Day on the P4 blog.
Our OneTech programme was recognised for its work making the startup sector more diverse with the National Enterprise Network’s Social Impact in Enterprise Award! Dedicated to creating pathways for founders from underrepresented groups into the startup world, OneTech runs a variety of programmes from funding bootcamps to digital marketing training courses. Find out more about OneTech here.
The South Yorkshire branch of our P4 programme hosted a Showcase and MedTech Conference for the startups from its first cohort, emphasising the value these companies bring to the region. With ten companies pitching, it was incredible to hear about the progress they’ve made while on the programme. Find out what these companies are working on here.
Not to be left out, our Cancer Tech Accelerator held a demo day in July with eleven companies from Cohort 1 (read about it here). Cohort 2 is now underway with another 25 companies currently on the programme. We can’t wait to share more news about what they are working on in 2023.
This year, TEAM SY launched more than a dozen new programmes ranging from funding readiness bootcamps to crash courses in AI and internet of things (IoT) venture builders. In a first for Capital Enterprise, one of them was focused on the fast-growing gaming sector, the South Yorks Games Accelerator with IndieLab Games. In this blog post, we celebrated the accelerator’s launch and reflect on why it’s an exciting time for the UK’s gaming industry.
We looked back on how our long-running KEEP programme has helped a number of startups develop novel products around AI and ML. They include a company that predicts cardiac arrests, one that can read your brainwaves, a new product for creating high-quality 3D facial avatars, a startup that helps online retailers make better shopping recommendations, and this team that deploys machine-based neural networks onto industrial equipment.
Our CEO and resident startup funding expert, John Spindler, wrote a detailed blog post arguing that accelerators are a sound economic investment and deserve support. With the downturn in startup fundraising, this has only become more urgent and we believe it is more important than ever to support innovative founders. Read the whole thing here.
We interviewed two of the Entrepreneurs in Residence from our life sciences programme about why they like working with Capital Enterprise. Get the inside scoop from Priya Oberoi-Cattai, femtech angel and founder at Goddess Gaia Ventures, and Nirmesh Patel, one of the co-founders at Cambridge Cancer Genomics, now with The Venture Collective, on what they look for in a startup pitch.
The Barclays Funding Readiness Programme, powered by Capital Enterprise, supported more than 300 startups in the most recent Autumn 2022 cohort alone. Using a combination of group workshops and one-to-one support, we’ve made introductions to investors and taken the programme on the road with events in Glasgow and Southampton. A select group of startups will be invited to pitch in January 2023 – keep an eye out for more details.
Several startups from the P4 Precision Medicine Accelerator were invited to pitch at a GIANT Health event, which also featured Nathan McNally, P4 co-founder and Capital Enterprise’s Director of Health & Life Sciences, as a panelist. See all the participants here.
Seven startups from Capital Enterprise programmes were part of a $4 million grant funding award from Google for Startups, targeting black-led startups in Europe. Major congratulations to the founders and teams at Base Plus, Eccobell, Pace Revenue, Reach Industries, SimpliFi, Tinto, and TRIM_IT. See the full list of companies here.
As always, if you want to keep up with the latest from us – including accelerators, programme launches, funding opportunities and more – the best thing to do is sign up for our Entrepreneurs newsletter, which is sent approximately monthly.
That’s it for 2022! Wishing you all a happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year.
