‘Like being plugged into a rocket’: how new Founders at University of Cambridge cohort is thriving

Founders at the University of Cambridge has unveiled the eight new start-ups who recently joined its START Accelerator programme.

The founders of these deeptech start-ups will be participating in the 12-week programme to develop their discoveries as they attempt to evolve towards global significance.

The flagship initiative supporting and accelerating university founders to make an ever greater impact was set up in November 2023, with delivery by Cambridge Enterprise. The first START cohort was unveiled in March 2024.

The new cohort includes software, AI, life sciences and physical science to tackle the world’s most difficult challenges from novel cancer therapies to next-generation quantum chips. They will address global challenges across drug development, mental health and quantum.

The eight start-ups are:

Sqwish

Cambridge-based company optimises AI workflows, cutting input costs by 91 per cent, offering 2.6 times faster inference, and a 14 per cent performance improvement by improving retrieval and reasoning performance. Sqwish sits between you and your AI provider and is OpenAI and Gemini compatible, among others.

Federica Freddi, co-founder and CTO and Ushnish Sengupta, co-founder and CEO, says: “Being part of this cohort feels like plugging into a rocket... there’s so much drive, energy, and zero tolerance for the word ‘impossible.’ . Surrounding ourselves with people who’ve battled their own Goliaths... whether that’s scaling teams or scaling AI, means we’re in good company as we take on ours…”

Pinepeak

The London-based company has developed physics-driven, AI-enhanced software to predict wildfire risk and behaviour across any terrain, anywhere in the world, with up to 90 per cent prediction accuracy in urban and wildland areas.

Savvas Gkantonas, co-founder and CEO of Pinepeak, says: “The network is incredible. We have built relationships with people who are truly helping us navigate the founder journey. You cannot get better than that in Cambridge. We are becoming better founders, mentored by the best.”

Trismik

A Cambridge company providing fast reliable testing solutions for large language models through a proprietary computer-adaptive testing method, delivering results up to 99 per cent faster, allowing AI engineers to accelerate innovation.

Co-founder and CEO Rebekka Mikkola says: “Being part of Founders is a huge privilege. Founders gives us a trusted community to grow with, and a space to be both ambitious and supported. The programme offers peer support, mentorship, and access to real experience from people building bold things.”

Cambridge Adaptive Testing

Tackling school-age mental health challenges with an innovative age-specific platform for efficient mental health assessment.

CEO Alison Howie says: “Being part of Founders has brought a real sense of momentum to the company and we've made a lot of progress in a short time. The opportunity to work so closely with our mentors has been great. It's been really inspiring to hear from so many experts and founders who have been there before us and to share that learning and experience with our fellow spinouts from such a wide range of academic areas.”

Podromic

Using AI to analyse data and predict how dementia patients will progress over time to support treatment.

CEO Andrew Welchman says: “Founders helps bridge the gap between our personal motivations to make a difference and the realities of deploying our AI in the fight against dementia. Our technology is born and bred in Cambridge – and we want to see it grow and flourish here. We’d heard the phrase ‘the Cambridge phenomenon’ many times before, but it’s not until you see it up close and personal that you really see how important it is.”

Electra Bio

Powering the future of data-driven drug discovery through the production of lab-ready research tools to enable large datasets.

Co-founder and CEO Douglas Van Niekerk says: “. Being part of the Founders cohort is a huge opportunity for us – as researchers and technical people, the training and mentorship that we’re receiving on the programme is invaluable. In a few short weeks, we’ve seen not only an accrual of commercial skills and know-how, but a fundamental shift in our mindset and approach to commercialisation.”

Gastrobody Therapeutics

A biopharmaceutical company creating ultra-stable, orally-administered protein therapeutics to treat conditions of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, which affects more than half a million people in the UK alone.

Stealth

A new quantum computing company operating in the semiconductor space, currently in stealth mode.

The average age of this year’s chosen cohort is 40 and 81 per cent of the participants have a PhD: each founder is either a current or former Cambridge student or professor.

As well as £40k up front investment, they receive intensive mentoring and support, before a demo day in London in front of 200-plus investors.

These eight chosen companies will now embark on a 14-week programme, where each team will undergo 50 hours of intensive mentorship from their own entrepreneur in residence (EIR) – one of the Founders’ network of more than 250 experts, specialists and connections.

In addition, they will also receive non-dilutive seed funding, which includes funding from the University of Cambridge and investor partner Parkwalk Advisors, and benefit from free hosting by ideaSpace West, a co-working space on the West Cambridge site. Supporting partners involved in the programme include sponsors KPMG, AstraZeneca, Hitachi, and Cambridge Judge Business School.

Moray Wright, CEO at co-investor Parkwalk, said: “It’s wonderful to see a new cohort of innovative Cambridge entrepreneurs who are building companies at the intersection of AI, deep tech and impact. Cambridge is one of the UK’s top cities for VC investment but founders face myriad challenges taking their tech from the lab into the world, including a lack of funding and support to make this leap.

“We’re pleased to support the Founders at the University of Cambridge programme and we look forward to seeing how this new cohort progresses and scales during the 14 weeks.”

Gerard Grech, managing director at Founders at the University of Cambridge, said: “I’m delighted to see the launch of our START 2.0 cohort and highlight the brilliant University of Cambridge start-ups building deep technologies that have the potential to change the world.

“If there is one thing Cambridge isn’t in short supply of, it’s ambitious entrepreneurs, but there hasn’t been a bridge between that ambition and flawless execution. Recognising that entrepreneurial journeys are unique, we’ve now developed and launched two other programmes to complement START, including SYNC, a co-founder matching and hatching programme, and SPARK, an incubator in partnership with King’s College Entrepreneurship Lab.

“In the meantime, we’re committed to working alongside these exceptional Start 2.0 founders and their teams to transform their groundbreaking innovations into globally significant companies.”