These ventures have just started at Accelerate Cambridge. They are at various stages of development, with some having already raised their first seed round.
AMS
AMS’ intelligent infrared-based road safety system helps drivers to avoid wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVC) by delivering simple visual indicators and maps integration providing animal presence alerts. AMS system combines cutting edge technology to reduce wildlife vehicle accidents to minimum. Detection devices sense animals’ temperature and movement using integrated passive infrared sensors and cameras. The system involves road indication lights, that inform drivers about the location of an animal ahead. The system will be integrated with online maps allowing live updates on the mobile devices.
The Communication Practice
We give leaders and managers the confidence to have crucial conversations through online communication coaching with professional actors. The actor plays the other person in the client’s real-life upcoming conversation so they can prepare, improve, and calm their nerves before the real thing.
DearPlant
DearPlant is a two-sided vertical marketplace for houseplants, which provides environmentally friendly door-to-door local sales of houseplants. Houseplants sellers are still unable to sell online, meanwhile, the demand for houseplants is still accelerating following the pandemic. Most houseplants sold in the UK are imported from the Netherlands or Southeast Asia which causes high carbon footprint, excessive plastic packaging and harmful shipping for plants. Existing online marketplaces for houseplants, such as Facebook and Gumtree, do not offer targeted marketing, search tools or plant care instructions. Our business model cuts the shipping costs, creates a free market control of prices and develops a scalable network.
DiRibona
DiRibona’s soil analysis and bio-fertiliser solutions help landowners and agricultural companies suffering from reduced crop quality due to soil degradation. We achieve this by delivering precise soil quality analyses and precision-based bio-fertilisers, unlike the current solutions that are synthetic and generic
Ethicronics
Ethicronics’ main activity is hardware-enabled cybersecurity fighting against counterfeit, compromised and recycled electronics. Our first unique selling point is certifying your hardware is the one designed, at scale. Our SaaS solution provides hardware integrity certificates for market segments such as defence, security, transport, communication, finance and IoT. Ethicronics’ team brings together expertise in software engineering, electronics manufacturing, and hardware security.
Fathom Cognition
An unmet need in Alzheimer’s disease diagnostics is for scalable, culture-fair cognitive assessments that are sensitive to the very earliest disease stages. 40% of patients with cognitive impairment are not detected by GPs. 99% of Alzheimer’s clinical trials fail because recruited patients are too far progressed. Fathom Cognition (formerly NaviCog) has developed novel virtual reality cognitive assessments that meet this need. We are a team of neuroscientists and neurologists that have translated frontline cognitive neuroscience understanding to design assessments that accurately measure the first brain function altered in Alzheimer’s disease: navigation.
Our mission is to enter both international clinical trial markets as well as clinical dementia diagnostic pathways within the NHS. Our vision is to help reduce the global burden of dementia.
Frozen Data
As three computer scientists we know the importance of data. our venture aims to empower web3 creators and influencers with analysis of data stored on the blockchain. This could be any kind of digital good. We can then track these and see who owns what and from this create high value analytics for people and organisations. It would allow us to perform data science on a potentially massive scale.
Globean Foods
Globean Foods is a one-stop shop for plant-based protein ingredient and we serve plant-based meat manufacturers, brands, restaurants, and catering services, starting from the UK and Europe. The plant-based protein market is expected to worth more than £200 billion globally by 2035. However, Globean Foods has identified some critical issues in the market and the growth can be further accelerated by addressing them properly.
Globean Foods aims at helping many excellent plant-based meat ingredients innovation reach the market and be adopted widely and commercially. We will select and import the outstanding and innovative ingredients from our carefully selected supplier in Asia, the growing hub of alternative protein with advanced technology and resources. We will also standardising a traceable plant-based meat portfolio so customers can have transparency on the selection of ingredients and easily understand the composition and application.
HeartAID
Developing a device to treat heart failure which can be implanted by a minimally invasive procedure.
luucid
We are on a mission to make nights-out safer. We are developing straws which change colour on detection of spiking drugs. We will focus our sales to bars, clubs, and pubs across the UK. Individuals will also be able to purchase these on our online store.
Oxbridge Clinical
Oxbridge Clinical aims to revolutionise the etiological diagnosis of respiratory infectious diseases, which currently represent one of the main challenges for doctors in the primary care setting. Our technology, based on the emerging field of solid-state nanopores, will be able to discriminate between the multitude of germs responsible for respiratory infections, which are generally characterised by very similar symptoms. Cheap, quick, and capable of being deployed directly at the point of care, Oxbridge Clinical will allow physicians to finally opt for the most appropriate therapy, without having to rely on the indiscriminate prescription of broad-spectrum antibiotics.
Providentia
Health services across the world are facing an identical challenge – how can we provide world class care to an ever-increasing population of cancer patients? Diagnosing cancer early drastically improves health outcomes and reduces treatment costs. However, whilst screening is an effective tool to diagnose cancer early, only 6% of cancers are currently detected within screening programs. A rigid one-size fits all approach to cancer screening is ineffective at diagnosing cancers in a diverse and variable population – a personalised approach is needed. Providentia aims to revolutionise how cancer screening is delivered by public health services, leveraging our innovative risk stratification platform.
Sprig Foods
Sprig creates quality, carbon-neutral kitchen staples that give you and your meals more than just flavour. This is to meet the paradoxical needs of the modern consumer: the want for the convenience of ‘fast-food’, with the health and sustainability benefits of ‘slow food’.
Anna (Mason) Wood is the energetic and dynamic founder of Sprig who has recently completed an MBA at the University of Cambridge. She has strong proven track record in strategic project management, 8 years start-up and international corporate experience with roots in the UK agricultural industry to boot.
SyncSupply
SyncSupply is a supply chain risk model system that can help automotive manufacturers mitigate suppliers’ risk in advance by finding alternative solutions based on AI & Blockchain.
We aim to help the manufacturers plan in advance before a crisis arrives, confirm a sustaining production capability and implementing the state of art digital techniques to real-world implications to solve real-world risk mitigation problems
Tycho MedLink
Stroke is an enormous public health problem. The aggregate cost of stroke is estimated at £26 billion per year in the UK making this a major challenge for the future. We help stroke survivors improve cognitive deficits by using Augmented Reality (AR) technology to gamify the rehabilitation process, increasing capacity for them to regain independence in activities of daily living with affordable price.
Currently, there is no long-term training process for patients that suffer from executive dysfunction, which leads to patients adapting to living with their cognitive impairments. The short-term training process tends to be very intensive for the patients to cope. Moreover, the training exercises can be repetitive, and patients are easily bored.
Our algorithms can analyse the results and suggest suitable levels and tasks to patients; therefore, avoiding boredom or frustration.
Viridian Seeds
Viridian Seeds aims to generate improved varieties of legumes (Super-Legumes) which will transition agriculture and food production to a more sustainable future, while accelerating the dietary transition to plant based diets. Our mission is to create super-legumes to provide a sustainable source of healthy plant protein and nutrition. We are a next- gen plant product company backed by cutting edge technology. Our products are improved grains of protein crops such as Lentils, Yellow peas, Chick-peas, Kidney beans and Lupins with novel traits created in our R&D laboratory. Our technologies are, next generation AI based Targeting Induced Local Lesions In The Genome (TILLING) for mutation screening and CRISPR gene editing for mutation creation. Our products will benefit farmers, consumers and the environment.
Virtual Scientia
Immersive Virtual Lab Simulator using AI, AR and MR advanced technologies.
The life sciences sector requires highly skilled specialist practical education and training at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, which is often difficult to attain due to limited access to laboratories, high costs and constraints on equipment availability. Further, an international study conducted with students (n=405) showed a lack of confidence and increased anxiety in practicals, which could be a safety issue. The move towards flexible and blended learning encourages the development of an online platform to provide specialist virtual practical knowledge to complement skills developed in a lab.
Virtual Scientia is on a mission to provide specialist practical training using a realistic, immersive, and interactive virtual lab simulator to help train students and increase skills, knowledge, and confidence. The Virtual Scientist platform uses 3D computer generated imagery (CGI), laser-scanned equipment for photorealism and Augmented and Mixed Reality for an immersive experience. The platform allows students to undertake simulation of protocols such as Cloning, Immunofluorescence, ECG etc. It is targeted at the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology sectors, Healthcare and NHS Diagnostic labs, with later applications in other practical-based sectors.
Vuala
Vuala is a company working to disrupt the food waste collection industry with innovation. Our innovation automatically sorts out food waste from other waste and turn them into raw material for energy production within hours on site. In doing so, we save 95% labour and logistic cost, 95% CO2 emission while providing cheaper, faster, and cleaner service. Our mission is to reduce 100 million tonnes CO2 in 10 years.
Wander out Wild
Wander out Wild will be an aggregator platform business connecting wilderness-based companies in Southern and East Africa to the UK market. Think Airbnb, but specifically for safari operators, camps and lodges that run nature-based activities and experiences. Each operator will be carefully selected for the platform to give users an authentic and safe experience that they would likely only be able to find if they had a local recommendation.