The six start-ups making up the 2024 Accelerate@Babraham cohort unveiled
Babraham Research Campus’ hugely successful pre-seed company support programme, Accelerate@Babraham, which launched in 2018, has selected the six science start-ups making up its 2024 programme.
Accelerate@Babraham’s strong reputation precedes it, with each cohort company mentioning that hearing of the achievements of previous participants had been a factor in their decision to apply.
The sixth year of the programme is supported by a number of strategic partners and with teaching and learning activities from the likes of Triple Chasm and Medicines Discovery Catapult, adapts each cycle to build on previous success.
The package of support on offer which includes a year’s free lab space, £10k funding and access to an unrivalled network of experts, mentors and investors is always hotly contested and this year was no exception, with the selection panel impressed by the strength of extremely high-quality applications.
The six selected life science start-ups looking to develop products and services to make a positive difference to healthcare are:
- Athernal: developing new vaccines designed to lower the risk of cancer and other age-related diseases. Its approach focuses on targeting early indicators of cancer with novel vaccine techniques to eliminate them, aiming to improve patient outcomes
- enstic: dedicated to transforming the understanding and management of insect populations through innovative sensor-based devices to provide real-time, data-driven insights into ecological impacts and health risks they cause
- Ephyra: developing an innovative sponge RNA technology that targets microRNA disease drivers to restore cellular health during disease
- The New Platelet Company: manufactures universal platelets for transfusion from induced pluripotent stem cells to add to the supply of platelets from donors, which is not sufficient to treat all patients at risk of bleeding
- OvartiX: a women’s health drug discovery company that harnesses large-scale human multi-omics data, cutting-edge cell engineered and animal models to identify, validate and develop next-generation therapeutics for female reproductive disorders, and
- U-Ploid biotechnologies Ltd, which develops next-generation IVF therapeutics for treating female infertility by improving the egg quality within the IVF cycle, generating more eggs capable of supporting a healthy pregnancy.
While addressing the participants as part of the bootcamp stage of the accelerator, Babraham Research Campus CEO Derek Jones said: “The connections you make at this stage of your entrepreneurial journey will set you in good stead for your future. You’re absolutely – according to the evidence we have – in the best place to have the greatest likelihood of success anywhere in the UK ,if not Europe.”
That sentiment certainly hit home for the co-founder of National University of Singapore spin-out Ephyra, Lavenniah Annadoray, who said: “We wanted to come here because it’s the right ecosystem to be in. The mentors, the investors, they’re all here and there’s a great entrepreneurial attitude.”
