In small proportions we just beauties see
Last night I had the pleasure of being on a panel with some great start-ups that came out of the Cambridge University Entrepreneurs. The pleasure was an unexpected one - my co-founder Tim Minshall should really have been on the panel, having stayed close and supported the competition through the last 10 years, but he asked me to stand in. Another co-founder Shirley Jamieson was there too. But it was nice to review the impact of the volunteer student-run business plan competition we started with a group of enthusiastic undergraduates 10 years ago.
The numbers were impressive. £0.5M in prizes has led to 40 companies forming that have raised over £30M in investment, the majority of which are still trading and employing 110 people full-time. But more impressive were the personal accounts of the CEOs who had founded as a result of engagement, from Aptivate, Cambridge Temperature Concepts and iSolve. Networking with the blend of technically savvy students and local business people who enter the competition and being mentored by local business angels had clearly helped each of these CEOs build a team and skills. They fielded the questions from a packed lecture theatre with the confidence of teams that are bringing money into the economy through export sales.
Looking out across the audience, I wondered how many more CEOs-in-the-making were sitting there, and how they will contribute to our Cambridge economy. I wondered how many of the employees of the companies started by CUE will form their own companies, just as the employees of Acorn did. The competition was once just a small thing, an idea with some people who believed in it. It is good to see that idea growing.
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