The CPCA Growth Hub were proud Sponsors of the much anticipated 21toWatch Awards hosted by Faye Holland at The Bradfield Centre in Cambridge.
People, companies and the ‘things’ they create, across Cambridge and the East of England are setting the standards in innovation and entrepreneurship across the globe. #21toWatch is a dedicated campaign to showcase and highlight the maybe lesser known, recognising those exciting new entries across all market sectors, and celebrating the very best work going on today in the region. With such diversity and ingenuity amongst the #21toWatch cohort, the attributes each submission is assessed on are Innovation, Challenge, Influence, Viability and Memorability.
The full Top21toWatch 2024 List
The #21toWatch People:
Ahmed Waraky, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute and co-founder of K-Stem, is directing research that focuses on machine learning and single-cell omics to advance stem cell transplantation and personalised medicine.
Alicia Showering, CEO of BugBiome, is dedicated to developing natural and durable microbiome-based insect repellents.
Mark Golab, co-founder of Cambridge Surgical Models (CSM), a startup focusing on manufacturing a new generation of artificial anatomical models for surgical training.
Bakul Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Deliver Biosciences, developing nanoparticle delivery vectors for targeted and specific delivery of payloads to re-programme cells in vivo, curing fatal diseases in a fraction of the time and cost compared to existing curative therapies.
Jack Chengzhi Guo’s venture with Professor Erwin Reisner promises a new way to treat waste plastics. Based on interdisciplinary research at the University of Cambridge, their technology turns waste plastics into green hydrogen and valuable organics
Nadia Radzman is a plant biologist working on rehabilitating forgotten legumes back into the food system and is a co-founder of a startup that accelerates genetic improvements in challenging legume crops.
Paolo Bombelli and colleagues pioneered the development of a novel technology capable to generate electricity from the photosynthesis of algae. This novel technology can substitute portable batteries for powering billions of small electronic devices.
The #21toWatch Companies:
BeyondMath is using AI to solve the complex simulation of physics in engineering design orders of magnitude faster, providing reductions in time, cost and environmental impact when taking designs to production.
Cambridge Vision Technology is a startup whose technology enables early detection of Alzheimer’s Disease using retinal scanning
Cellexcel has created a novel process to manufacture water-resistant bio-composite materials. These will replace conventional composites such as fiberglass & carbon fibre, as well as plastics and possibly metal.
ExpressionEdits’ proprietary intronization platform recodes transgenes to better resemble natural genes, leading to significant improvement in protein production – a key challenge for recombinant proteins and DNA medicines
Kuano combines state-of-the-art simulation and AI to add quantum detail to structure-based drug discovery, helping to enable the design of next generation medicines.
Remedium Energy developing a new carbon capture technology, carbon capture battery, that captures CO2 from cement/steel plants and monetizes the variation in electricity price to make carbon capture profitable.
Vector Bioscience’s platform technology tailors nanomaterials for drug delivery applications. These nanomaterials are MOFs (Metal Organic Frameworks) can store 10x more molecules than other encapsulation methods and are designed and tailored for effective and targeted delivery.
The #21toWatch Innovations (Things):
EPIHERD (Antler Bio), harnessing gene expression data and AI to evaluate the status of livestock and prescribe targeted husbandry interventions to increase performance, efficiency, welfare and sustainability.
Gus, the automated asparagus picker (Autopickr) – incorporates cutting-edge AI and navigation technologies, robust robotics, and new cutting technology to optimise the harvesting process.
Heartfelt Technologies, an automatic, AI supported, non-contact telemonitoring solution for heart failure patients.
Molyon, has developed a new cathode material to enable high energy-density and long-life lithium-sulfur batteries. This opens up fundamentally new modes of transport and facilitates the net-zero transition.
Tenyks, – ‘AI doctor’ resolving issues for machine learning engineers working with computer vision data.
Verinnogen, building hand-held, innovative tools to directly profile physical properties of 3D surfaces with direct applications in pre-clinical oncology research.
William Oak Diagnostics, an innovative point-of-care test which simplifies the identification of various micronutrient deficiencies making maternal, child, and infant testing more accessible.
