ENTREPRENEURSHIP INSTITUTE IMPACT REPORT
2018/2019
ENTREPRENEURSHIP INSTITUTE At King's Entrepreneurship Institute, it is our mission to support entrepreneurial mindsets. Our vision is to offer support to everyone at King’s, so that they can make entrepreneurship part of their DNA. We do this by supporting start-ups to be abundant, scaling, diverse, employing and robust. Potentially even more important, King’s will produce people who have entrepreneurial skills. It doesn’t matter what future career you have in mind; entrepreneurial skills will be useful and relevant. We are audience-led, and our programmes are driven by the needs of our community. We believe in collaboration and collaborate with student societies, faculties, other universities and enterprise organisations.
Our work is divided into three areas, which follow the journey of an entrepreneur:
Engagement These activities introduce entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial skills. You could read our Start! magazine, attend a talk with inspirational speakers, or go to one of our idea feedback sessions.
Skills Our theory is that entrepreneurial skills are relevant for everyone, so we’ve developed the 7 Skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset. These are: compel, disrupt, think lean, validate, be resilient, build teams and get it done. We run workshops, competitions, awards and events that all aim to build these skills.
Accelerate If you have a start-up idea, you could win a space on the King’s20 Accelerator – a year-long programme offering work space, expert knowledge, leadership development and investment to help grow your business.
In November 2018, King's was named Outstanding Entrepreneurial University at THE Awards 2018 – the 'Oscars' of Higher Education.
ENGAGEMENT
Our community Our community is open to all King's students, staff and alumni, from any faculty. As an audience-led institute, we co-create our activities with our community, focusing on diversity, inclusivity and being a collective.
31,922
244
Our community's total number of engagement grew by 6,922 from 2017/18.
Drop-in sessions carried out by Entrepreneurship Institute staff
14,150 Student sign-ups
Social media followers
5,565 since 2017/18 +41%
1,389
1,913 4,818
37% Increase in student awareness
4,000+ Event attendees
ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS At the Entrepreneurship Institute, we believe anyone can be entrepreneurial, and that developing the 7 Skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset will enhance any future career path.
Our competitions, events and innovative learning experiences will help you develop this in-demand range of skills, which will support employability and career progress in whichever field you decide to pursue.
Venture Crawl Taking the classroom outside to explore our urban ecosystem for entrepreneurship, the Venture Crawl began at King's in 2017. The journey takes students on the iconic red buses to some of London's top innovation hubs and workspaces to experience the capital's start-up ecosystem first-hand and meet top entrepreneurial leaders. They also enjoy behindthe-scenes tours, talks and activities. The event is designed to give students the opportunity to connect to real-world businesses, be inspired by the UK’s vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem, and gain skills in self-confidence, creative thinking and leadership. VIP passengers hop on board to share their stories and stimulate conversations, peer-to-peer learning and idea sharing.
13 Universities
40 King's students
300+ Total students
In 2018, the Venture Crawl grew from one university on one bus, to 13 universities on six buses, visiting 30 innovation partners across London.
Visa Endorsement The Entrepreneurship Institute endorses Start-Up Visas. The Start-Up Visa is a new two-year visa for early-stage, but high-potential entrepreneurs who are starting a business in the UK for the first time. Startups must be innovative, viable and scalable.
ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS
Idea Factory
Enterprise Award
55 149 Applications
20
10
Teams to bootcamp
Teams to final
Idea Factory is King’s College London’s flagship idea generation competition! It aims to nurture the biggest and best ideas from across the university that have the potential to grow into viable ventures.
Start Up 2019
1,500+ Attendees
Over 1,500 members of the public interested in entrepreneurship came to King's to attend Start Up 2019, in partnership with Enterprise Nation, and 150 King's students attended.
Students achieved this award The King’s Enterprise Award will help students develop the 7 Skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset, which will enhance careers. The award becomes part of each student's Higher Education Achievement Report, which can be showcased to employers. In 2018/19, 55 students achieved this award.
Workshop Series
133 Attendees at workshop series
Pilot workshops and webinars on a range of topics related to the 7 Skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset, were attended by 133 people.
ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS Women Entrepreneurs Programme In accelerators around the world, it's typical to find the majority of ventures are led by male entrepreneurs. The Women Entrepreneurs Programme aims to help our King's20 Accelerator be the first university accelerator to reach gender parity, sustainably.
1,123 Women engaged
1,403 Hours of skill development activities
11/20
For women-led ventures to reach gender parity, our programme must focus on identifying and tackling the barriers that currently exist for women entrepreneurs to gain access to the support and resources they need. This is the first year of a threeyear programme
104 Retreat applications
40 Retreat participants
For the first time ever, our accelerator cohort had a majority of women-led ventures.
"The retreat was fulfilling, informative and inspiring. I was so grateful to be part of a group of determined and inspirational women – I felt extremely comfortable working on my business idea in a safe environment. This retreat not only gave me the confidence to continue with my business, but also equipped me with the practical and technical skills for me to be successful. I am so happy that the Entrepreneurship Institute awarded me with this opportunity." Kimberley Moyo, Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy
ACCELERATOR The King's20 Accelerator is a 12-month programme to support the 20 best ventures at King's. Each venture must have a King's student, staff or alumni as part of its founding team. During their year with us, they receive exceptional access to work space, knowledge, leadership and investment. Since we launched in October 2016, our ventures have achieved extraordinary success:
£14.8m
72%
£12.6m
270
Investment
Still trading
Revenue
Jobs created
Case study Michele Tieghi, King's alumni, is the co-founder of German Kraft – a ‘craft’ brewery rooted in German tradition. Bringing the freshest and purest beer to the world with a compelling concept of a 0km supply chain, everything is made on-site. Through German Kraft, 72 jobs have been created for the surrounding community, as well as £6m revenue, £1m in investment, and countless happy customers.
Our investor network “Investor heaven to be at the amazing King’s20 Demo Day.” Lennart Hergel, partner, Ananda Impact Ventures
400 Investors & partners community
250 Total attendees at our events
67% Network growth rate throughout 2018/19
Investment is vital for scaling ventures. At King's, we have built a network of 400 investor relations to support our ventures. Throughout the year, we run an extensive series of events to introduce investors to our ventures.
Venture profiles
OBRIZUM is a cloud platform that uses artificial intelligence to personalise content navigation and data analytics for corporate e-learning. The OBRIZUM platform automates the creation of adaptive e-learning programmes for large organisations that need to provide scalable learning and development opportunities. OBRIZUM was chosen as the Digital Leaders 100 AI Innovation of the Year.
Panakeia is a universal engine for one-step cancer diagnosis by building AI-based diagnostic solutions to inform precision treatment of cancer. Â Panakeia made it to the finals of the Santander University Entrepreneurship Award.
Seedlink creates sustainable agricultural supply chains by connecting rural farmers to urban markets. Seedlink joined The Future 20, a new incubator programme from the Allia Future Business Centre, open to 20 of the most innovative start-ups working to address the most pressing global and local challenges.
Venture profiles
Mamoq is an online marketplace that connects conscious consumers with over 50 style-forward brands. Each brand is evaluated against 12 standardised criteria, and this information is readily available to customers so they can assess each brand's strengths. Mamoq's co-founders were included in The Do School's list of the top 25 people in purposeful retail, alongside sustainability leaders from Etsy, Patagonia, Danone, Warby Parker and People Tree.
Black Ballad is a digital lifestyle subscription, created to empower black women in Britain who want and need media and lifestyle experiences that put them first, serving them through content and community. Black Ballad's founder was named one of the Pitch 100 Superwomen. The company also progressed to the finals of DBACE 2019 Deutsche bank Awards for Creative Entrepreneurs.
Knowledge sharing & learnings Knowledge sharing Partnering with external bodies and knowledge sharing has been a big part of 2018/19.
24 Internal partners
Research
47 External partners, including 20 other UK universities, international universities, corporates, investors and media
We launched our first ever research project in collaboration with the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King's. This five-year study aims to identify anatomical and functional brain differences in entrepreneurial people. If entrepreneurial thinking could be better understood, perhaps we could learn more about what stimulates this kind of innovation. This could inform educational programmes around the world which aim to create a new generation of entrepreneurial people.
Learnings Our learning in connection with diversity and inclusion progressed in 2018/19, especially in connection with gender. We have better identified the barriers for women entrepreneurs and are working on how to support them to thrive. We are learning to become experts in answering the question: ‘what does it mean to be entrepreneurial?’ The 7 Skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset go some way to answering this question. We believe that entrepreneurial skills are relevant for all careers and can support any future. The Entrepreneurship Institute is start-up-like, too. We are entering our scaling phase and must learn to evolve, like all good start-ups do. With university partners, we have focused on the advantages of collaboration. "While universities are highly competitive, they are also deeply collaborative." Julie Devonshire, Entrepreneurship Institute Director
2018/19 in photos
