Show Notes 198: Deep Tech Innovation Meets Real Market Demand: Inside KPMG's Tech Innovator Competition

This week's show features an unmissable interview with the East of England's KPMG Tech Innovator winners, and the insights will resonate with anyone building or investing in deep tech.

The Week's Cambridge Tech Headlines

Before diving into the main interview, the podcast opens with Tech news from around Cambridge:

• Heartfelt Technologies secured FDA Breakthrough Device designation for their AI-powered heart failure management system

• Syndicate Room launched its first University Partnered Enterprise Investment Scheme fund with the University of Nottingham

• Luminance introduced Luna, a proprietary vertical AI model purpose-built for enterprise contract work

When Founders Meet Judges Who Actually Get It

The episode features Salvatore Di Maggio from KPMG, alongside competition winners Gwen Wyatt Moon (Prospectral) and runner-up Tim Smeda (Hypergen). What makes this conversation essential listening is how it captures the genuine moment when founders realise their technology isn't just clever, it's wanted.

Tim's reflection on the judging experience is telling: "The sentiment was that we actually really want startups to do well. The questions were really well reasoned and thought through." This matters because it highlights how the best competitions create psychological safety for founders to pitch authentically.

Two Compelling Deep Tech Stories

Prospectral is transforming industrial computer vision by bringing material inference to production lines in real-time. Gwen explains the gap they're filling beautifully: "Industry has always been stuck in choosing between very fast cameras that tell you where things are, or lab-bound expensive equipment that's offline." They've already secured paid pilots with Rio Tinto and the Singapore government.

Hypergen is solving a different problem entirely, making micro gas turbines viable for industrial power generation by running them 300-400°C hotter than competitors. Tim's background in aerospace engineering shines through as he articulates a technically complex solution in commercial language. The kicker? "People are coming to us with requests. That's been about the best two months of the whole company."

The Ecosystem Effect

Both founders credit Cambridge and Cranfield's startup ecosystems with accelerating their learning curves. Key takeaways:

• Accelerators work best for mentorship and training, not just capital

• University connections unlock validation resources (Hypergen used Cranfield's Innovation Voucher to validate their concept)

• The ecosystem is bidirectional—founders benefit from and contribute back to their communities

What Happens Next

Here's where it gets interesting for investors and fellow founders:

• Prospectral is closing a £3.3M funding round and hiring business development talent who understands camera ecosystems.

• Hypergen is securing corporate manufacturing partnerships to avoid capital-heavy production and hiring electronics engineers before their pilot launch by year-end.

• The competition itself continues to the London final, with the UK winner advancing to the global KPMG Tech Innovator event in Portugal in November.

Why You Should Listen

This episode captures something rare: founders at the exact moment their technology transitions from "interesting idea" to "real market solution." It's a masterclass in pitching, ecosystem leverage, and most importantly, building something people actually need.

Whether you're a founder seeking validation, an investor hunting your next deal, or simply curious about what's happening in UK deep tech, this episode delivers genuine insights wrapped in compelling storytelling.

Subscribe to the Cambridge Tech Podcast now, you won't want to miss this one.

Produced by Joe Donaghy of Cambridge TV. Supported by media partner Business Weekly.

Subscribe on all major podcast platforms or visit cambridgetechpodcast.com. If this episode moved you, a five-star review really does help others find the show. 🎧

AI Transcript

00:00

Faye Holland

Are you a startup founder, considering launching or relocating your business in Cambridge? What if Cambridge, one of Europe's leading deep tech hubs, was easier to access than ever? Introducing Launch Cambridge, a powerful new initiative bringing together trusted local experts in workspace, legal, finance, banking and relocation, giving you a seamless de risked path into the UK's most dynamic innovation ecosystem. Visit launchcambridge.com for more information.

00:35

Speaker 2

Welcome to the Cambridge Tech Podcast, talking all things technology from the heart of the UK's tech capital. Here are your hosts Faye Holland and James Landandexpand.

01:01

James Parton

Welcome to Cambridge TED Podcast. Faye is taking a well deserved break this week, so it's just me for this week's news. After last week's excitement of Cambridge wide open day in the polestar, we're back to the regular audio only format. However, we've been teasing the upcoming 200th episode and some changes in how we deliver the podcast, but I won't reveal anything at this stage just yet, but you will be seeing more of us in the future. Also, as part of the refresh we have reworked the podcast website so be sure to check that out. Remember, you can get involved by leaving us a voice message via the Call the Show link on the website. Please do leave us a message.

01:41

James Parton

Update us on your news, any events you'd like us to promote or leave us feedback or perhaps recommend a future guest onto this week's news. First of all, congratulations to the team at Heartfelt Technologies. We spoke to them back actually in episode 62. Their AI powered medical device, which is designed to revolutionize how heart failure is managed in the home, has received Breakthrough Device designation from the US Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Seamus Husher, who is the co founder and CEO of Heartfelt Technologies, said this designation is an important moment for Heartfelt Technologies, but more importantly for heart failure patients. Many people living with heart failure or are already managing multiple medications, appointments, symptoms and day to day challenges of their conditions. Asking them to take yet another task every day is not always realistic.

02:35

James Parton

From the beginning our goal was to create technology that quietly supports patients rather than placing additional demands on them. We believe passive monitoring has the potential to help more people stay well at home and avoid the disruption and distress of hospitalisation. As I say, jump Back to episode 62 to learn more about their product. Cambridge based Syndicate Room, an FCA regulated fund manager, has launched its first University Partnered Enterprise Investment Scheme fund. Developed in partnership with the University of Nottingham, the new fund marks a major strategic milestone for Syndicate Room as it deploys its market leading investment infrastructure to capture value from one of the UK's most potent research and spin out ecosystems. By blending Syndicate Room's expertise as a streamlined fund manager with the University of Nottingham's World Class Innovation pipeline, the fund creates a unique high growth vehicle for investors.

03:27

James Parton

The initiative was officially unveiled at the University's recent Spin Out Summer celebration. Tom Britton, co founder of Syndicate Room, commented, the University of Nottingham has a phenomenal track record of translating world class research into commercial, viable, high impact companies. For Syndicate Room, this partnership represents the natural evolution of our data driven investment philosophy and this EIS fund creates a highly curated yet structured, robust route for our investor network to back deep tech, life sciences and sustainable pioneers at the absolute ground floor where the potential for microeconomic impact and investor return is its highest. Luminance, a Cambridge based centric pioneer in legal grade AI for enterprise contracting, has launched Luna, its proprietary vertical AI model series.

04:15

James Parton

Purpose built for contract work, Luna will underpin Luminance's contract intelligence capabilities and power agentic workflows across a business with Luna Crescent launching as its first model in the family. Unlike general purpose models, Luna Crescent has been trained specifically for the structure, language and commercial reality of legal contracts. Built within Luminance's own AI stack and fine tuned on a high quality subset of its proprietary legal dataset which has been drawn from over 220 million verified legal documents, it interprets legal language with greater precision, Graham Seals, the co founder and Director of AI at Luminance, said with Luna Crescent Enterprises finally have an LLM built for their work rather than borrowed from elsewhere. This is what vertical AI should deliver. Greater accuracy, greater speed, greater trust for the work that matters most. That's our news this week. So now onto this week's interview.

05:12

James Parton

Today we explore KPMG's Tech Innovator program. Joining us for the conversation are Salvatore Di Maggio of KPMG and the east of England's winner and runner up, Gren Wyatt Moon of Prospectral and Tim Smeder of Hypogen. Welcome everyone to Cambridge Tech Podcast. Why don't we just go around the room and if you can quickly introduce yourself. So Salvo, why don't we start with you.

05:43

Salvatore Di Maggio

I'm one of the BDM for KPMG responsible for the Cambridge market. Nice to meet you all.

05:50

James Parton

And Gwen.

05:52

Gwen Wyatt Moon

Hi there, I'm Gwen, I'm the CEO of Perspectral. We're a spin out from the University of Cambridge working on the next gen of computer vision.

06:01

Tim Smeda

And Tim hi, I'm Tim, CEO of Hypogen. Spin out from man in His Garage.

06:07

Faye Holland

Excellent. That's great. So welcome everyone onto the podcast. We're going to start by just talking to Salvo. First of all, so this episode is all about the KPMG Tech Innovator program. So Salvo, let's talk about that. First of all, I love the fact that I get to interview you on the podcast, so I can just ask you a load of random questions. Let's start with what is the program? How long has it been running?

06:33

Tim Smeda

Oh sure.

06:34

Salvatore Di Maggio

KPMG UK Tech Innovator Competition is annual program designed to identify and celebrate leading technology innovation across the UK. Since its launch in 2013, it has provided a platform for high growth business to gain visibility, connect with investor, industry expert and showcase their solution on a national stage. The competition has since evolved into a gateway to the global KPMG Tech Innovator final with a UK winner progressing to compete internationally.

07:04

Faye Holland

That's great. I didn't realize it had been running quite so long because it has. Salvo, that is amazing. Certainly the last few years it seems to have really grown in traction. Is that true or have there been any highlights from some of the early years?

07:19

Salvatore Di Maggio

Absolutely. Like for instance, for this year we had more than 1800 subscriptions.

07:25

Faye Holland

1800?

07:26

Salvatore Di Maggio

1800.

07:28

Faye Holland

Wow. Amazing. Was that for the national competition or for the East?

07:34

Salvatore Di Maggio

It was for the. For the uk. For the UK one.

07:36

Faye Holland

Okay. I was. We're starting to get very freaked out then we just ran a podcast where were talking about how lots of startups were. The numbers were declining so I was wondering where you were getting them all from. From the east of England there.

07:49

Salvatore Di Maggio

In the east of England, it's about 40.

07:52

Faye Holland

Okay. Yeah, okay, that sounds about right. So what are your goals from doing this? So obviously it's a great program to showcase the startups, but what do the people who participate get from participating?

08:06

Salvatore Di Maggio

The competition sits at the intersection of innovation, entrepreneurship and growth capital, making it especially relevant to the UK tech ecosystem. It is designed to identify a company with strong commercial potential, not just interesting ideas and to give them visibility among investors, partners and industry leaders. The core aim, I would say is to find the best and brightest tech scale ups in the UK and give them a platform to present their grown plans. And it also aims to champion the future of tech by connecting funder with exposure, feedback and opportunity through regional hits and the UK final and the global stage.

08:45

Faye Holland

Perfect. And let's just quickly before we talk to our companies for this year, what are some of the recent wins that some of our listeners may know?

08:55

Salvatore Di Maggio

Oh. The competition has highlighted a long list of notable UK tech names like including Babylon, Health, Ref, Me, what3words, Safe, 2net, Vivid, Q, IROC, Innovus, Medical, Allocycle, Initial AI.

09:11

Faye Holland

Okay. And I think locally some of the names people will recognize are the likes of Mimicry, Materials, Nexus, those types of organizations. Let's move on then and talk about this year's competition. Who were the finalists this year? Who were the pitching companies?

09:28

Salvatore Di Maggio

We are nine pitching companies, mix of technologies, AI and biotech as well. And we are the winner and the runner up which are here with us today.

09:40

James Parton

Fantastic. Well, that's a great segue to bring Gwen and Tim into the conversation. So firstly, congratulations to both of you. Sounds like you had some strong competition there. So you both done incredibly well. Before we jump into the detail about what your individual companies do, we always like to get to know you a little bit better and your path to being founders. What was your inspiration? Were you always into technology and from a young age? So maybe Gwen, you can give us a little bit of your background and then we'll move on to Tim.

10:07

Gwen Wyatt Moon

As a kid I loved taking things apart. So I always really enjoyed technology, physics and math. My parents didn't really understand because they weren't super engineering based, but they empowered me to kind of go and do the things that I loved. They had a great rebellious spirit and a kind of indication to just tell me to go and do the things I enjoyed. So I went to Swansea University for undergrad where I did electrical and electronic engineering. Really loved that, really loved working in semiconductors and how to scale them. And that's where I would say my true passion for this sort of space started during that. And then I joined a spin out for a little bit from Swansea University, did that for a couple of years but wasn't really in a space I cared too much about.

10:47

Gwen Wyatt Moon

So I got offered a PhD over at Imperial in London and started working kind of on scaling semiconductor technology through that. Also started doing lots of venture based training as well. So I pitched in the final of what was called Venture Catalyst Challenge there way back when, really enjoyed it, really wanted to do startup, tried to spin out my PhD research. Absolutely no commercial validity to that at all. And I learned that pretty quickly. So I got a place on entrepreneurs first, but then went, probably not a good idea to try this isn't going to work. And at the same time got offered a job at Cambridge Uni.

11:23

Gwen Wyatt Moon

I made the sensible decision to go and work there for a few years, met my Co founders in the department of Electrical Engineering, saw that this was a technology that would really scale and went, this is the thing that I really want to spin out and become a part of and grow into a very large business. And so here we are today.

11:40

James Parton

Amazing. And Tim, what was your story?

11:43

Tim Smeda

So I was actually born in Zimbabwe, which is where I got the sort of inspiration for the problem, if you like. By personally experiencing the demand for energy outgrew the roots, capacity to deliver. It came here when I was 14, sort of became basically British, got the opportunity to obviously go to university where I did aerospace engineering, did a few different jobs and then went on to do an MSc in engineering project Management. And then my first job out of that was Jaguar Land Rover in new product, looking at the software and processes that engineers were using and basically trying to get them into new systems. That sort of went from the 1970s, I guess. And then I did the same thing again at Airbus, decided that corporate was way too slow and jumped ship into the startup world.

12:27

Tim Smeda

The first one was quite a learning experience, fairly similar to Gwen, didn't quite know what I was doing and all that kind of stuff. It didn't quite work out. The primary angel investor in that one gave me the chance to start Hypergen. So it's kind of lucky to start out with some funding straight away.

12:43

Faye Holland

So let's go into a little bit more detail on both of you as winner and runner up. So Gwen, I'm going to come to you first of all, what's the elevator of what prospectral is actually doing?

12:56

Gwen Wyatt Moon

The key thing prospectral is transforming is the way that machines see and what we mean by that is standard computer vision is great at being able to say maybe show you shape and color, but not very much else. If you can utilize what we call high dimensional data, you can start to find more interesting things and start to see actually not just where things are in a picture, but also what they're made up of as well. So very useful for things in kind of industry automation. Anywhere where you want machines to have smart vision to allow them to carry out tasks like quality assurance and yield measurements, et cetera.

13:30

Faye Holland

So let's dig a little bit deeper on that. What kind of use cases can you share with us?

13:36

Gwen Wyatt Moon

The applications for our technology is incredibly broad. Machine vision within both consumer and industry is undergoing a massive change. What we're targeting at the moment is within industry, so it's in within manufacturing lines where you need to make very fast decisions based on your production and being able to have better data within that production line is far more useful within those spaces to, as I said, increase yield, reduce time to decision making and reduce waste as well.

14:04

Faye Holland

And is it what you're doing because no one else is doing it and it's something that's unique or do you feel you've got like first to market here?

14:13

Gwen Wyatt Moon

Yeah, I think industry in particular has always been stuck in choosing either between kind of very fast cameras within computer vision that can tell you where things are, or lab bound expensive equipment that's offline that allows you to understand where the materials are in your system. And the gap for us is that no one can utilize this technology in the true computer vision framework to allow for materials inference at the speed of standard computer vision. And that ability to bring this spectral analysis or materials inference into inline processes is incredibly unique and not something we have seen anybody else do so far.

14:51

James Parton

Just for my kind of understanding, are you working on both like the hardware side of the optics side as well as the software as well?

14:57

Gwen Wyatt Moon

Yeah, yeah, that's correct. We like to call ourselves hardware enabled intelligence. Basically you need our hardware to understand the data that's coming off it and then be able to utilize it within kind of computer vision and within a software stack to give you that materials inference.

15:12

Faye Holland

And you talked about in your introduction how you were a Cambridge University spin out. Tell us how that link worked, what engagement you still have with the university.

15:22

Gwen Wyatt Moon

Yeah, well, I mean at this moment as I give this podcast, I'm sat in Ideaspace, which is above the Hausa Forum, which is part of Cambridge Enterprise. So we're very much embedded still within the university. Yeah, you're very lucky if you're coming from a university like Cambridge. The ecosystem is incredibly rich. You get a lot of incredibly good networking and I shouldn't just say that within the university, but within Cambridge in general. It's a very healthy environment for kind of scaling and a lot of engagement between all the businesses that sit in the Cambridge ecosystem and then the university itself. So we're very entrenched in that and it's a very privileged space to be in to build a startup.

15:58

Faye Holland

The other thing I would like to know is just where are you in terms of development now? So obviously I know you from Legacy 21 to watch from a couple of years ago. How are you with funding and growing the team at the moment?

16:13

Gwen Wyatt Moon

We would have met way back in the 20 to 1 to watch. We've increased our team size, we've moved massively in terms of technological development, both from early stage ideation and team or actually a proof of concept and system that's that are kind of TRL 6, depending on how you want to gauge that. So really move forwards. We've also taken on like paid for pilots with very big players, companies like Rio Tinto from the mining ecosystem, obviously second biggest mining company in the world and also with the Singaporean government. So real tangible development with end customers. So lots of movement since we last spoke.

16:49

James Parton

Amazing. Tim, moving on to Hypergen, you gave us a hint that you'd seen this problem firsthand.

16:55

Tim Smeda

We're not the first in this market. There's a thing called a microgas turbine generator. There's several, not many, but several companies around the world that make them already. They're sort of basically meant to compete directly with diesel generators, hence where the idea comes from. And broadly there's two premises about them that make them more suitable in certain scenarios. The first is that jet engines are easier to multi fuel. So if you want to get away from sort of long form supply chain like diesel and use second generation sustainable fuels made from organic waste on site, that is the ideal solution for them. So things like ammonia, methanol, biogas, anything like that. And the second premise is that they have very few moving parts, they're quite mechanically simple devices, so the maintenance is very low as well.

17:43

Tim Smeda

The main downsides to them though is that precision engineering is quite expensive. So they are slightly more expensive than the piston generators they're meant to replace and they're also less efficient. So there's a sort of a quite a challenge there that if you can't find cheap enough fuel, the system will never pay back effectively. So you'd have to want it for a very niche reason. What we've done is technologically found a way to enhance the efficiency which comes from much larger gas turbines. Basically what you have to kind of do is in engine terms, increase the compression ratio. But when you increase the compression ratio, you increase the temperature that the engine operates at and there's a material limit the turbines can withstand.

18:23

Tim Smeda

And so all we've done is taken the turbine and created our sort of own novel system that can run 300 or 400 degrees Celsius hotter, depending on the scenario. So all that does is basically increase the efficiency in line with piston generators. And now you've got the opportunity with different kinds of fuel to basically pay back over the lifespan versus what it would have cost to run a diesel generator doing the same thing. But also your fuel supply chain is much more guaranteed and you can guarantee sort of reliable power.

19:02

Speaker 2

Technology. Moves fast and now so can you. Discover Polestar, the all electric performance brand vehicles redefining how we drive. Precision engineering, minimalist design and software that evolves with you. Experience it at Holden Group in Norwich and Bury St Edmunds or let us bring the test drive to your door. Proud sponsors of the Cambridge tech podcast Polestar electric performance redefined. Discoveroldengroup.co.uk Polestar.

19:39

James Parton

Are you targeting industrial use case or would this also be applicable in a kind of consumer scenario?

19:45

Tim Smeda

It's primarily industrial mainly because of the higher capital cost. Yeah, our initial concept for this was again based on my experience, so it would have been more like remote microgrid or poor transmission scenarios. But since our first public pilot, we've got a number of surprising use cases that have come up like basically centered around heavy goods vehicles charging because the cost of putting in substations that have the capacity and the time to do that is seemingly quite challenging. And once you've installed the substation, it's fixed in place, you can't move it around. Basically surprising demand for logistics support from ports and I assume will one day be large banks of lorries charging overnight.

20:27

James Parton

And in terms of the product maturity, are you in market selling right now? Are these kind of pilot programs, where are you on that spectrum?

20:36

Tim Smeda

We haven't gotten to market yet, but we're hoping to have our first pilot trial live by the end of this year from the demonstration that we just did early TRL6 almost exactly the same as Gwen.

20:45

James Parton

I guess a question, more of a commercial question. It sounds like you're going to be working with infrastructure owners looking at replacing existing infrastructure. How do they typically engage with startups? Are they quite risk averse? Are they open to working with startup businesses? What's your experience been on that kind of business development side of the conversation?

21:05

Tim Smeda

As I say, honestly, so far it's people coming to us with the request. I had quite different ideas about where we'd be going, that they're coming to us and saying this is the problem we're having and we think what you're doing solves it. That's been a really probably about the best two months of the whole company so far.

21:21

James Parton

We were going to move on to like why you would enter competitions like this, but without maybe asking that question too early, what do you put that down to? Has the company received a lot of publicity or are people just inquisitive and they're just searching for this kind of technology?

21:35

Tim Smeda

I guess as a founder, before you start your startup, you go and read all the reasons that startups fail and probably the number one cause is that you make something that nobody wants and you've got the sort of panic if what you're doing takes a long time to develop that nobody's actually going to want it. But I feel like we've been quite lucky in our case that just simply by showing what we have, the technology speaks for itself and people start getting interested, I suppose because luckily it sounds like a jet engine and it's something that people can grasp onto that it's doing something. The idea that you put fuel in and energy comes out is not hard for people to get. And 50% of the sell is just done by them seeing the video or seeing the product doing its thing.

22:12

James Parton

And similar question that Gwen answered, what's the status of the company right now? Team size, funding situation.

22:18

Tim Smeda

There are seven of us in various forms, mainly engineering because of the complexity and one business development part time tfo, a few different advisors and sort of a fair amount of external sport from different accelerators and stuff like that. Our status is that the first pilot that we've applied for is part funded by basically grant funding. If that's awarded, which we'll find out this Friday. We're already in the process of trying to raise for that so that we have the match funding in place to start that pilot. That would be £300,000.

22:50

Faye Holland

Yeah, good luck with that as well. So I think it's a great example with both of you. You were at a really exciting time of the company and it's a great example of the different types of companies and point there timber about being something that people actually need. We need a lot more startups to remember that as well. So James just suggested that were going to come on and talk about the competition. So yes, I totally agree. It's really important that you do build the profile in the most efficient way as possible for your company at such an early stage. So what made you want to apply for this competition? And I always say this with a bit of a giggle because usually you'll have people like me and Salvo and James saying you should apply for this competition.

23:37

Faye Holland

Was it someone who encouraged you or did you just see the opportunity out there?

23:41

Gwen Wyatt Moon

I'd had a little bit of engagement with KPMG because I'd been at the Super Cluster Climb accelerator last year which was held in KPMG and that we'd had a little bit of interaction and then I got a. I think I just got put on a mailing list. If I'm honest. And then I got information about this competition and I saw it and I saw that it looked incredibly interesting for a company like us because yeah, similar to Tim, we're at this very exciting stage and we're very much in the space and ready to scale and having a partner like KPMG kind of champion you or being able to be part of that kind of competition just feels like a no brainer. So kind of getting our name out there and getting that credibility behind us.

24:21

Faye Holland

Yeah, thanks Gwen and Tim, same question to you.

24:25

Tim Smeda

So this is not actually our first year at this competition. We applied last year, obviously didn't win otherwise wouldn't be allowed back rules. But there was quite a lot of feedback from the judges that we got last year that we took and incorporated. One of the challenges of coming from academia is the way you express your startup is mustn't be like that at all kind of thing. And it's a learning journey, simple commercial language and it was actually one of my teammates who found it last year and we decided to play again this year and partly on the basis to see how much we've learned and obviously we have because we came runner.

24:56

Faye Holland

Yeah if at first you don't succeed and all that. So Salvo Tim just talked about the judges there and getting feedback who were the judges this year?

25:06

Salvatore Di Maggio

So we had a. It's a panel mix from X winner. There was a chairman of Cell xl the winner last the previous year we had Hemi Nicole from the Cambridge Angels, we had Anna Salim and Claire from Canaccord Asset Management and Foresight we had Sam Graham from Capital. So it was a mix of investor from a different stage angel up to in private equity and experienced entrepreneurs.

25:35

Faye Holland

What was the feedback like from the judges on this year's cohort from Prospector?

25:41

Salvatore Di Maggio

I think the judge highlighted very strongly how Gwen is such a confident CEO yet with humility she clearly articulated like a very complex technology in a manner that was like very understandable at the fine opportunity and also the very daily traction for Abergen the judge highlighted such a calm and clear presentation more to do also with regards the numbers enable the judge to visualize solution and target market and also for this early engagement with customer and a lot of opportunity.

26:13

Faye Holland

And so for Tim and Gwen was it calm and clear while you were pitching? How was the experience for you? Gwen, do you want to go first? Yeah.

26:21

Gwen Wyatt Moon

I had done a pitch the day before which was very different where I hadn't been able to use slides but I at least been. I suppose I was in the mindset of pitching. So that had helped actually shout out to the KPMG who were running the show. I think they could see that everybody was nervous and the key thing that they did is they took us like when were moving into the judges space and having conversation with us and keeping us nice and calm. And I think actually that made me feel like I am a fairly confident speaker. I am quite happy in those spaces. I enjoy pitching, but having people that just are there to go, it's fun, don't worry about it, was really helpful in calming the nerves and going into the room of judges.

26:59

Tim Smeda

Unlike Gwen, I'm not particularly confident speaker at all actually. And so it's taken a lot of pitches, which in a lot of cases have sometimes felt quite hostile and people are looking for what you're doing wrong. But in this case it was a really positive vibe and it felt like the sentiment that we actually really want startups to do well and we want your pitches to go well. And the room was calm. It didn't feel like, yes, they were there to judge, but not in. In a harsh way. And the questions were really well reasoned and thought through and yeah, I guess in the end felt like they'd understood the content. So that was really nice for me.

27:32

James Parton

Yeah, that's really positive feedback. That's good to hear. So the competition is a great example about how the ecosystem supports local founders, local companies. So I think both of you in the conversation have touched on your involvement with things like accelerators or connections with universities as founders. How important is that support from an ecosystem and having organizations that are there to support you, give you advice, guidance and how have you capitalized on that? And Tim, like you, I know we spoke about this prior to the interview, you're based in Cranfield and we've been speaking a lot about the Oxford to Cambridge focus. So I think you're the first company we've had on the podcast that's been from Cranfield. So why don't we start with you, Tim, on that question. What kind of support have you had from the ecosystem?

28:17

James Parton

How do you see the ecosystem supporting you moving forward?

28:20

Tim Smeda

I didn't actually start at Cranfield. When I say started in my garage, that's what I was doing because it was 2020 and there was nowhere else for me to go. There is 2023. We applied to an incubation zone here that was a Barclays Eagle lab. Unfortunately, the university's been through some financial difficulties and things with changes to regulations regarding international students and Stuff like that. But even though that's shut down, we still retain a workshop here and a couple of the different accelerators and things like that we still use. So we've been awarded get funding from the Cranfield Seed fund, which is £25,000, and you get support from the Betony center for Entrepreneurship here, of which there are kinds of expertise in startups that you can take advantage of.

29:02

Tim Smeda

They have other connection to things like the Green Business Network and you get tickets to things like they have a Venture Day every year, they just had one last week. You can go and network and look into latest trends and talks and stuff like that. As well as that, there's also the practical things. So we're on an accelerator called Earth Scale, of which Cranfield is one of the participating universities. And from that we've used what they call it Innovation voucher, which is about £14,000 for us, where gas turbine academics at the university have done a validation project for us. We can show that basically our concept has legs and that's really helpful that we didn't have to fund that ourselves because these things are quite expensive.

29:44

James Parton

Absolutely. And Gwen, your Cambridge experience.

29:47

Gwen Wyatt Moon

Yeah, obviously within the Cambridge ecosystem there's quite a lot of accelerators and I suppose it's making sure you're choosing the right one for you as a company and like trying to make sure, yeah, you're not doing an accelerator. An accelerator and more for the actual mentors, et cetera and training that you get. My co founder Tom did Impulse at the University of Cambridge. I think that was really great for him because it's very technically focused and gave us a really great start. This is pre us getting funding. So this is when we are both also academics. And then I did the Cambridge accelerate, which is a bit from the Judd Business School, which is obviously open to anyone in the Cambridge ecosystem. And I mean that city rather than university.

30:28

Gwen Wyatt Moon

And that was really useful in terms of having a bit more of a business focus. So it was very good for me to take on that learning. The key thing, I think, as Tim said, if you're not from this kind of startup background, all these ecosystems is really learning actually how to build a business is super key. What is the term sheet? What if profit and loss? What are all of these financial terms? I honestly have or had no idea about when I was first starting the company. And yeah, pulling on all of the kind of people that give us that training has been incredibly useful because it's just accelerated my learning. It was either going to have to be like me learning by myself or the co founders learning by themselves. But these accelerators just accelerate, quite literally accelerated that learning.

31:09

Faye Holland

Yeah, I think that's the point of the ecosystem, isn't it? That they can all pull together and there are always people that can help. And I think the other point is it's. That's all you getting the benefit from the ecosystem, but it also goes the other way. So I remember last year, Gwen, you were all over Cambridge Tech Week because you were putting yourself actively out there and using the ecosystem to your own benefit. So I think that it's good not to forget that side of it as well. It's been great speaking with you both. And my last question to the two of you is going to be, have you got any specific milestones? Obviously Tim, you've talked about one of yours. Are there any milestones or were you looking to hire anyone?

31:53

Faye Holland

Is there anything that you want to put out as a call to the people listening to the podcast? And Tim, do you want to go first?

32:00

Tim Smeda

I guess it's not just the sort of fundraising and pilot trials. Support the pilot trials. We're looking to basically get into a corporate partnership with some manufacturers, if we can find them. We've took to one already, basically in the sense that we don't want to raise the capital to buy the equipment and warehouses and all that kind of stuff. We would just utilize their systems to produce our pilots for us. And along with that, we would probably get a couple of more staff on board as well. We need additional skills in electronics because this goes out to customers don't particularly want it to be unsafe or fail or damage their equipment, for example. Yeah. So I mean, all those things have to come together roughly at the same time, none particularly more important than the others.

32:45

Tim Smeda

But yeah, I think those are the key things for us over the next few months till December.

32:49

Faye Holland

Okay. So corporate partners and a couple of extra team members. And we'll put links to your profiles as well in the notes. That's you, Gwen. What about from your side?

32:59

Gwen Wyatt Moon

Yeah. So we're mid fundraiser at the moment. Always great to talk to investors, as I think every startup is always mid fundraise. But we're legitimately trying to close around soon. So that's around £3.3 million to scale up the technology and really get into those proper wedge markets so we can build our traction. And then alongside that, obviously because we're raising and once that's closed, we are going to be starting to hire and a particular key hire for us is a business development person or product development person who really understands the kind of camera ecosystem. And that's like a key hire for us over the next six months. Ish. And then what we're looking for technology people. We're very tech heavy company because we're building something very innovative.

33:41

Gwen Wyatt Moon

So anyone who's interested in kind of new forms of computer vision in material science, very keen to talk to those kind of people as well.

33:50

Faye Holland

Okay, that's brilliant. Thanks, Gwen. And then the final word, I think, has to go to Salvo. So what's next in the competition? Salvo?

33:57

Salvatore Di Maggio

Sure. Perfect. Of course. Represent our region in the London final. And the UK winner will get more than a trophy. They will advance to the global Tech Emet Innovator competition November in Portugal.

34:12

Faye Holland

That's perfect. Well, good luck to Gwen. Congratulations again to Tim and thank you, Salvo, for joining us today.

34:24

Speaker 2

Today's show was produced by Joe Donaghy of Cambridge TV and supported by our media partner, Business Weekly. The Cambridge Tech Podcast is available on all major podcast platforms and on cambridgetechpodcast.com if you've enjoyed this podcast, please give it a five star review. It'll really help others discover the show.

Transcribed by https://fireflies.ai/

To listen and subscribe, search for ‘Cambridge Tech Podcast’ on your favourite podcasting platform or visit cambridgetechpodcast.com.