MAY
2019
COHORT
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OXFO L.E.V8 DEMO
DAY
2019
THE VENTURES
#OXFODEMODAY
MAY
2019
COHORT
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“Creating, Connecting, and Committed to a Better Future.”
WWW.OXFORDFOUNDRY.OX.AC.UK
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#OXFODEMODAY
#OXFODEMODAY
Contents 4 Empower ENERGY 6 infogrid 8 intellicharge 10 lantana publishing 12 nye health 14 oxwash 16 scalework 18 see-through scientific 20 sociability 22 wow you! 24 Make connections 25 engage with us 26 MAKE NOTES
WWW.OXFORDFOUNDRY.OX.AC.UK
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empower energy
The Solution Empower Energy removes the key barriers to access for the poorest communities and are establishing
“Connecting rural India to the modern economy”
a trusted brand and long-term local presence in each village. They provide high quality appliances to rural villagers through their local shopkeepers. They remove upfront costs by allowing individuals to
www.empower-energy.co.uk/
pay-per-use, ensuring any individual can afford life-
@EmpowerNRG
changing goods and services. Empower’s solutions allow them to quickly establish trust and a local presence in each village. This local presence of our franchisee is key for their long-term vision. They are able to understand and discover
The Problem
usage trends of customers through the data they collect on transactions. This data will allow them
300+ million Indians have no access to quality
to understand customers better than any other
lighting and appliances that could transform their
distributor, allowing them to continue providing
lives. Millions have to use inadequate solutions
solutions to the communities as they grow and
for fundamental needs, such as using kerosene
develop. They are building a distribution network to
for lighting, or walking to the nearest town just to
help transform rural India by connecting everyone to
charge their mobile phones.
the modern economy.
Living without basic electricity and appliances constrains the lives of millions, excluding them
Revenue Model
from the rapidly developing modern economy. For example, villagers are forced to carry out their
Revenue is generated through shopkeepers selling
tasks in dim lighting, unable to read at night and
‘charges’ of an appliance - initially lamps - to end
cannot stay connected to people outside of their
customers. A single charge of an appliance allows
villages.
the end customer to use an appliance for a certain period of time. The revenue from this transaction
These villages have lost hope in existing solutions.
is split between the local shopkeeper and Empower,
Products available to them tend to be of poor
with the exact percentages depending on the product
quality, whilst higher quality solutions do not
supplied. Empower would, for example, charge
reach the individuals who need them the most.
customers 31 rupees for a week of lighting, of which 5
Villagers in rural communities also have low and
rupees would stay with the shopkeeper. The revenue
volatile incomes, and cannot afford the upfront
to Empower would be used to pay down the initial
costs of existing solutions. Distributors simply do
capital expenditure on the product. Additional future
not know them well enough to provide financing
revenue streams include data for marketing, as well
solutions. The existing distribution model is
as market testing of new products and providing
broken.
insights into rural India.
4
Traction and Impact Empower are currently operating in one state in India, Odisha, which has a relatively high proportion of unelectrified households. They have been operating half a dozen pilot villages over the past few months
300+ £100k CUSTOMERS
with 300+ customers. They have replaced kerosene
INVESTMENT RAISED
usage by 70%, allowing children to study an additional 30 minutes at night and women entrepreneurs to double their incomes.
The Team
Investment Raised Ronit Kanwar, Co-Founder, CEO •£100k received from a UK based Angel Investor
Ronit is an award-winning entrepreneur who brings experience in strategy and
•Additional
grants,
finance, as well as knowledge of and connections in India. He is in charge of fundrais-
competitions and crowdfunding totalling around
ing, business development and partnerships. As an Indian national, Ronit has a strong
£30k.
passion for making change in his country of origin. BSc Economics & Management,
funding
acquired
from
The Long-Term Vision
Keble College, University of Oxford (2019, Moritz Heyman Scholar & Future Global Leaders Fellow), Forbes 30 under 30, World Economic Forum Global Shaper.
Empower are creating a distribution network across
Gideon Laux, Co-Founder, COO
rural India, and they have high ambitions. Starting
Gideon brings experience in scale-up and sustainability strategy across 9 countries
in the state of Odisha, they aim to build a network
and 14 industries from social enterprises, tech start-ups and global Fortune 500
serving 46 000 villages across India in five years
companies. At Empower, he is in charge of operations, resourcing and finance. MSc
time. This would allow them to reach millions of
Economics for Development, Somerville College, University of Oxford (2018, Rotary
underserved rural consumers, providing additional
Scholar).
incomes to rural shopkeepers and income-generating opportunities for end customers. Their clean lighting
James Dickson, Co-Founder, Data & Impact Advisor
solution will help replace millions of litres of kerosene
James brings experience in impact measurement and strategy having worked at the
in that time, leading to reduced carbon emissions and
UN for over 6 years on multi-million-dollar technical assistance programmes across
potentially improved health outcomes. Moreover,
40 countries. MBA & MSc in Evidence-based Social Intervention and Policy Evalua-
their data platform connecting local shopkeepers, end
tion (2018, Pershing Square Scholar), Green Templeton College, University of Oxford.
customers, and suppliers will help deliver a new range of targeted products and services.
5
infogrid “Making businesses, buildings and equipment more efficient with scalable IoT technology”
The Solution INFOGRID provides a fully end-to-end ‘Sensor + SaaS’ solution that allows blue-chip businesses to retrofit their existing assets and render them ‘smart’ immediately. They ship their clients micro-sensors, the clients fit these to their assets themselves (it takes seconds – literally peel and stick) and they
www.infogrid.io
immediately have access to the data through the INFOGRID cloud platform. Real time alerts and data visualisations allow clients to respond to events immediately, whilst all historic data is stored in the cloud and accessible at any time – allowing for powerful analysis. The net result is a scalable digital solution to a wide range of problems such as safety checks, cold chain tracking or monitoring desk utilisation.
The Problem A return on investment for clients is typically achieved For the last ten years, commercial IoT has been an
within two or three months. This is generated by
unfulfilled promise. INFOGRID finally delivers it.
reducing costs (e.g. by needing fewer staff or by
Despite a desire to do so, businesses have yet
replacing a more expensive system), efficiency (e.g.
to scale IoT across their organisations. Instead,
renting fewer co-working desks based on utilisation
deployments have been confined to specific use
data) and avoided waste (e.g. catching a fridge that
cases or verticals. Scale has been blocked by two
has failed before the valuable pharmaceuticals inside
key issues with existing solutions; they are too
need to be discarded).
complicated, too expensive or both. Contracts are yearly (or longer) recurring and include With INFOGRID, blue-chip businesses can finally
hardware, software, cloud storage and customer
fully embrace the power of IoT to reduce costs,
support.
improve safety and enhance client experience. The simplicity and versatility of the INFOGRID system means that non-technical staff can
Revenue Model
immediately use it to solve the problems they face, without the need for elaborate training. This use
INFOGRID is a SaaS business. Their unit of sale is a
could be automating a manual check, remotely
sensor deployed, but their key product is the data that
monitoring critical safety metrics or interacting
the sensor is enabling and delivering. Contracts are
with clients in real-time. Whatever the use case,
annual and recurring.
with INFOGRID it’s simple.
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£300k PRE-SEED ROUND
Traction and Impact INFOGRID is currently already working with ten blue-
The Team
chip businesses, at various stages. They had hoped to
William Cowell de Gruchy, CEO
reach three enterprise clients within eighteen months
Will graduated from Oxford (History) in 2009, and initially spent two years as an
when they raised their pre-seed round eight months ago, so they’re already well ahead of this target. Also notable is that they have not yet undertaken any outbound sales activity – everything has been generated from inbound interest. The INFOGRID trials within the healthcare system
Emerging Market Equity Analyst with Fidelity International. He then became an Army Officer, where his near five years and multiple overseas deployments taught him the value of simplicity. After leaving, he became a commercial due diligence analyst (buy side) for private equity acquisitions. Here he identified the problem that INFOGRID now solves, and learned the importance of commercial viability in any solution.
have already improved safe and efficient patient care, and made savings for one NHS Trust that equate to
Simon Shillaker, CTO
more than £144k in a year.
Simon graduated from Oxford (Physics) in 2010 and initially entered the world
Investment Raised •INFOGRID raised a pre-seed round last year of £300k from a mix of strategic and value add angel investors.
of algorithmic trading as a developer. He earned two Masters’ degrees in financial computing before founding eporta.com, a successful digital marketplace for furniture. He’s now undertaking a PhD (Imperial) in Distributed Computing, and advises and works with INFOGRID part-time. His work on algorithms has helped INFOGRID to build an incredibly powerful solution that’s still simple to use.
The Long-Term Vision In five years’ time INFOGRID will have six million sensors all streaming real-time data, globally. With this data, businesses will be drastically improving the efficiency of their organisations, the safety of their employees (or patients) and the customer experience they provide. When Successful, having 6 million sensors could generate ~£160m in revenue for INFOGRID, annually. This data will change the world for the better in many ways; it will make people safer, avoid waste and enhance how buildings are understood and used. It will create efficiency. Not only will this save significant expense for INFOGRID clients, but has shown with clients such as the NHS that it can make the world safer
Bernhard Wenzl, Techologist Bernhard graduated from the University of Hamburg (Computer Science) in 2004. He has over 15 years of development experience, including at the prestigious Fraunhofer Institute. His deeply technical back-end development expertise has enabled him to build the INFOGRID architecture so that it can handle millions of disparate data points in real time while delivering a seamless solution to end users. Rupert Lane, Head of Sales Rupert graduated from King’s College London (History and War Studies) in 2005. He knows B2B sales intimately, and understands how to build and lead teams. Having spent five years as an Army Officer (where he won a Military Cross) he had an excellent grounding in leadership before joining Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he led a $250m a year Equity Research Sales team as a VP. No stranger to uncertainty (he survived the team being cut from >40 to 2 people), he’s ideally placed to build and lead the INFOGRID sales team.
and more sustainable.
7
intellicharge “Powering electric vehicles with the greenest and cheapest electricity, while helping grids balance� The Solution
www.intellicharge.co.uk
Intellicharge uses the IoT approach, by connecting EVs and/or the EV charging infrastructure with multiple energy market dynamics, including various electricity prices and a renewable energy generation profile, to optimise and automatically control EV energy consumption while the vehicle is plugged in. Their customers are primarily energy suppliers, who will use their software platform to utilise the aggregated EV flexibility to reduce electricity procurement costs and to access new flexibility revenues. Intellicharge expects them to share the saving with EV consumers in form of an innovative
The Problem
electricity tariff.
The Intellicharge idea came from the founders’
The Intellicharge software bridges a gap in the current
own experience of being EV owners. Consumers
EV value chain. While EV manufacturers and charging
need access to charging solutions that are low
networks build hardware & infrastructure, and
cost and green. EV charging should also ideally be
electricity suppliers provide energy, the Intellicharge
optimised to make use of existing generation and
software fits in between by providing a charging
distribution capacity, and should not overload
optimisation service that intelligently controls EV
networks. However, that is not quite the case
energy consumption and charging infrastructure.
today.
Through charging optimisation, they can save money for consumers, charge EVs using cleaner energy and
EV charging today is unmanaged and inflexible.
reduce network bottlenecks for grid operators.
80% of charging takes place in situations where the vehicle is parked and plugged in for a very long period of time - much longer than the required
Revenue Model
charging time. When it is charging, it happens at times when everyone else is consuming power,
Their current revenue, and revenue in the immediate
so the grid is stressed, prices are high, the sun
pipeline, consists mainly of consultancy with external
is not shining and the wind is not blowing. As a
companies, with a small portion generated through
result, EV charging is considered a burden to grid
using the Intellicharge software. As they grow, they
networks, and does not provide consumers value
intend to adopt a SaaS model for software, and be less
for money.
dependent on consultancy work.
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Traction and Impact Intellicharge has run consumer trials with 20 Tesla owners in the UK, and a growing number of EV owners who charge their cars using Ubitricity’s streetlamp
delivering a 6-month pilot on flexible ev charging for uk’s fastest growing
chargers in London. All happy users with positive
independent energy supplier.
feedback demonstrating consumers’ acceptance of the concept.
They are currently delivering a 6-month pilot
The Team
in flexible EV charging for UK’s fastest growing independent energy supplier. This will be the first time a UK energy supplier is providing an energy offer
Pam Liu, CEO
that is based on EV flexibility.
Pam has 8 years of Mergers and Acquisitions experience in the European Power sector at Citigroup and National Grid plc. She has a thorough understanding of
Investment Raised
energy regulation, having worked closely with Ofgem and Elexon (UK’s electricity balancing and settlement code). She is serving as a voting member for Elexon workgroups on 1) P362: creating an electricity market sandbox process for
• Intellicharge has been self-funded to date.
The Long-Term Vision
innovation and 2) P370: meter-behind-meter settlement. She holds a BA (hons) in Mathematics and Statistics from Keble College, University of Oxford, and a Masters in Finance from London Business School, sponsored by Citigroup.
To intelligently charge as many EVs as possible
Ling Li, CTO
and help accelerate the transition to low carbon
Ling has 20 years of experience in software development and senior management
transportation. They’d also like to see a future where
at BNP Paribas and Goldman Sachs, where he was highly recognised for intro-
the Intellicharge software becomes the default
ducing technical innovation and for growing and nurturing strong development
option for any power consuming/storage devices
teams. Ling provides software consultancy for the UK’s energy sector covering
to be connected to the energy market to make most
industry data flow and CRM/billing systems. He holds a BSc in Information and
efficient and sustainable use of grid infrastructure
Systems Engineering from Imperial College London.
and renewable resources.
9
The Solution Lantana is bridging the gap in representation in children’s publishing. Inspired by the successes of entertainment franchises like Black Panther and Wonder Women, they work with authors and illustrators of diverse and minority ethnic heritage to create the next generation of inclusive main characters for children. They publish these stories as award-winning print books and eBooks and sell rights to the IP embedded in the content globally.
lantana publishing
And now Lantana is going one step further to build an online story sharing platform connecting underrepresented authors with new readers. Through crowdsourced and algorithmic content curation, Lantana Stories (name tbc) will give under-represented authors and illustrators the chance to hone their craft, and
“Because all children deserve to see themselves in the stories they read”
parents a treasure-trove of freely accessible bedtime stories for their children. Inspired by the adult story sharing platform Wattpad that has built a community of 70 million readers across 50 countries, creating several New York Times bestsellers and a host of new shows for Netflix, Lantana Stories will become the first
www.lantanapublishing.com
venture in the social storytelling space to focus on
@Lantanapub
children’s content.
Revenue Model Lantana Publishing sells books via a commission-based sales team to over 200 suppliers in over 35 countries, including major players such as Barnes & Nobel, Baker & Taylor, Waterstones and Foyles, Amazon and the Book Depository. Lantana Stories shifts the focus to building a community of authors and readers via an inclusive story-sharing platform. Authors submit stories to the platform, licensing us their IP, and watch their stories grow in popularity as they’re liked and
The Problem
commented on by readers. Illustrators submit images to accompany the stories, creating unique char-
Almost a third of British school children identify as
acter-based IP licensed to the Lantana platform. On
Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME) yet fewer
sign-up to the mailing list – enabling on-going mar-
than 5% of British children’s books feature BAME
keting of our published books – parents have access
characters and fewer than 2% of British children’s
to a free, online treasure-trove of bedtime stories for
book creators identify as BAME. The publishing in-
their children, with the option of paid subscriptions
dustry is stuck in a time warp, producing books that
accessing premium content, audio, video and so on.
resemble Britain’s population in the 1950s and fail-
Through crowd-sourced curation, algorithmic data
ing to reflect the diversity of the 21st century. Tra-
and machine learning, the platform can easily iden-
ditional publishing relies on an outdated B2B model
tify trending content for Lantana’s print arm to turn
comprising long supply chains, high up-front costs,
popular stories into printed books and eBooks, signifi-
poor cashflow and low margins that sees it commer-
cantly de-risking the publishing process. And Lantana
cially invested in mass market titles that are sold at
can generate substantial additional revenue by licens-
high volume. BAME children struggle to find heroes,
ing and selling rights to the stories and images on the
heroines and role models to aspire to.
platform to multimedia companies around the world.
10
sold 65,000 books across 35 countries. Traction and Impact Lantana has been praised by the press for ‘celebrating diversity and inclusion in Britain in a fresh, creative way’. They’ve been shortlisted for the Bologna Prize for Best European Children’s Publisher of the Year, the Clarissa Luard Award for Independent Publisher of the Year and the Nibbies Regional Small Press of the Year Award, and their books have received almost twenty awards and accolades between them. In 2017 Lantana’s CEO, Alice, won the Kim Scott Walwyn Award for women changemakers in publishing. To date, they’ve sold around 65,000 books to 200 suppliers across 35 countries, with an average YoY revenue growth of 168%. Their titles have been licensed by audio and app producers in Korea and China, translated into 10 languages and adapted into a play
The Team
by a London theatre company. They’ve been selected by Google as one of 12 UK businesses this quarter to undergo a Digital Accelerator Programme that will increase the impressions to their e-commerce site to
Dr Alice Curry, Chief Executive Officer Alice is the 2017 winner of the Kim Scott Walwyn Prize for women in publishing.
several million a month.
A former academic lecturer and freelance editor, Alice holds a PhD in children’s
Lantana estimate that their books are being read,
keynote speaker at conferences across Europe. Passionate about spearheading
viewed or listened to by 250,000 children each year, and now they want to increase that number to several million. Lantana has already received a thousand stories from authors and illustrators with unique voices and diverse content, only a fraction of which they’ve been able to publish in print, laying the foundation for the story sharing platform.
literature, has published regularly in international journals, and is a frequent change in children’s content, Alice has commissioned award-winning children’s books by authors and illustrators from nearly thirty countries. Dr Katrina Gutierrez, Chief Communications Officer Katrina is a children’s literature specialist from the Philippines. Following a PhD in children’s literature, she has received fellowships from several international research centres and given lectures on children’s literature to university students, authors and illustrators in the Philippines, Australia and Denmark. Katrina now manages Lantana’s communications and supports its authors and illustrators.
Long Term vision We’re living at a great time for children’s content. The UK children’s book market is growing year on year and is currently worth around £340m, with one in every three books sold bought for children. Lantana’s unique combination of tech-based content curation, publishing house and IP-based rights agency is set to disrupt the way authors create content and readers access stories: it cuts through the inefficiences of traditional publishing, generates tried and tested content with inbuilt success, and enables licensing to multimedia companies globally, producing children’s stories that meet the needs of the next generation of
Stephanie Weber, Projects Intern Stephanie is a journalist with experience working in Public Relations and Communications for companies and cultural institutions. She has always had a passion for storytelling and illustration and, hailing from Chile, was immediately attracted by Lantana’s books and its mission. Stephanie is currently studying an MBA at Saïd Business School in Oxford. Maleeha Mir, Publicity Intern Maleeha has a passion for children’s books and a particular interest in publicity and marketing. She has previously undertaken publicity internships with Hachette and Tiny Owl Publishing and has volunteered for IBBY, the Sociey of Young Publishers and Together Kid’s Literary Festival. Maleeha is currently studying for a BA in English Language and Literature at Kings College London.
readers.
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nye health “Enabling GPs to build digital-first primary care practices” www.nye.health
The Problem We all aspire to a life which is healthy, happy and lasts until a ripe old age. At Nye, they call such a life a ‘square wave’. However, in 2016 alone, 2.3 billion healthy life years were lost globally. Early mortality, morbidity and
The Solution
loss of well-being are driven by a lack of resources, a lack of implementation or a lack of knowledge. At the
Nye wants everybody to feel the full force of the
same time, healthcare systems face escalating costs,
world’s kindness. They want to release the power
burgeoning chronic disease and a huge demographic
in you, your data, the health system and your local
shift. We need to improve the experience of care,
community to keep you well.
improve the health of populations and reduce the cost per unit of care delivered. But how?
They do this by putting your friendly local GP, the best of your community and the health system of the
A perfect health system would maximise citizen
future in your pocket. They have built some potent
engagement and seamlessly implement state
capabilities which power Nye. These capabilities
of the art knowledge into patient care. It would
enable you to unleash data from yourself, your health
continuously create new knowledge in both
system and your environment. Our data driven
controlled laboratory settings and in the real
applications then give you convenient digital access
world, then feed this new knowledge back into
to your doctor. They give your doctor the ability to
implementation. The information produced by each
service your needs with greater efficiency. And the
patient’s care journey would be joined together to
health system the ability to learn.
improve clinical outcomes and promote long-term quality health at a population-level. It would be available to whoever needs it, whenever they need
Revenue Model
it, wherever they are in the world and be available according to need and independent of their ability
Nye focuses on generating revenue in three different
to pay.
ways:
Technology creates the possibility to lay the railroads
1)
for this kind of health system and to do so at the
sold into GP’s
same time as improving experience and reducing
2)
Research and analytics partnerships
cost.
3)
Channels: Primary care
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SaaS fees for the Nye technology platform
300k PATIENT REACH
40m MEDICAL RECORDS
The Team Dr Alexander Finlayson, CEO and Head of Product Alexander graduated with honours, distinction and the finals prize in medicine, has 10 years’ experience developing award winning digital health products (raised > £8 million in grant funding for healthcare innovation) and continues to
£1.7m
practice as a General Practitioner two sessions each week. He is a Doll Fellow at Green Templeton College, Oxford, was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University studying systems biology and Head of Research at the King’s Centre for Global Health. He was awarded British Medical Journal junior doctor of the year in 2012 for founding a DFID-funded technology company which delivers capacity building interventions in the health sector in fragile states with a particular focus
RAISED TO DATE
on Somalia. Dr Imran Mahmud, Co-Founder and Head of Growth Imran trained in medicine at the University of Oxford, where he was a Lecturer at Hertford College, and a specialist surgical trainee in the Oxford Radcliffe Hos-
Traction and Impact Nye have built and deployed clinical grade applications in live clinical settings. They have integrated into live clinical systems, creating the capability to enable more than 40 million citizens to access their medical records through Nye. They have signed agreements with institutions covering more than 300,000 patients, or 0.5% of the U.K. population.
Investment Raised
pitals. Imran was awarded a Master of Public Health (healthcare management) from Harvard University as a UK-US Fulbright Scholar (2013/14), before joining McKinsey and Company in London. During Imran’s 3 years at McKinsey, he led multiple projects, including several large scale technology and machine learning implementations with global pharmaceutical companies focussing on the analysis of medical and healthcare claims record databases using a variety of machine learning models. Dr Chris Tan, Co-Founder and Head of Operations Chris is a certified project manager (PRINCE2) and operations specialist. Following his PhD, Chris led the implementation of next-generation sequencing into front line clinical care in a major UK teaching hospital, working alongside a large
•£1.7 million raised to date
The Long-Term Vision
team of clinicians, scientists, regulatory experts and industry partners. Chris’ prior experience includes working as an expert consultant with the pharmaceutical industry, and serving as Chief Operations Officer and Project Lead at MedicineAfrica, where he was responsible for day-to-day management of a multi-mil-
In healthcare, impact is often measured in quality adjusted life years (QALYs). One QALY equates to one year in perfect health. Nye aims to be the world’s first one billion QALY company.
lion-pound grant jointly awarded to MedicineAfrica and King’s College London for the delivery of technology-enabled medical education online to partners in Somaliland.
13
quality dry cleaning without
oxwash
costing the
“Circularising the laundry, linen and garment care economy”
earth.
www.oxwash.com @oxwash
The Solution The OXWASH end-to-end integrated service allows B2B customers to order either ad hoc or schedule regular collections via the OXWASH website. They will soon have iOS and Android applications for our customers too - these are in development. They then collect items via their ultra-flexible electric bike fleet, bring them back to one of their ‘lagoons’ for washing and then returning the items to customers when they book a delivery. The entire process takes 24 hours on average. The net environmental impact is zero with renewable energy powering the entire process, water reclamation and unique bleach/harsh chemical free processing integrated into the OXWASH platform.
Revenue Model OXWASH are primarily B2B, as they are now moving
The Problem
away from focus on B2C. Their sales channel is a
The two most polluting and unsustainable global service industries are hospitality and catering. Each impacting our planet with billions of tonnes of CO2 emitted, millions of tonnes of plastic waste generated and untold disruption in increasingly congested cities across the world. With the increasing demand for food delivery and flexible short let accommodation, the problem is growing with frightening velocity.
targeted network campaign to establish client bases in a large restaurant network (Deliveroo/Justeat/ UberEats) as well as short-let accommodation (Airsorted, Staybeyond, HostMaker). They can then acquire and scale rapidly within these established networks. They will be formalising a partnership to become the Deliveroo national partner for workwear rental and laundry for them and their partner restaurants. The revenue model is contractual (1-6 year) relationships with B2B clients.
14
£500k INVESTMENT RAISED
The Team Kyle Grant , CEO Kyle co-founded OXWASH in 2017 with the current chairman Dr Aron Ping D’Souza. With a background as a research scientist at NASA and a DPhil in Synthetic Biology from the University of Oxford, Kyle is leading the team with an engineering rationale. He drives the innovation and sustainability focus of OXWASH, aiming to ensure growth and development whilst maintaining excellent customer satisfaction, and without sacrificing core sustainability values.
Traction and Impact The average monthly invoice per client is £1.2K. Partnerships established with Deliveroo, JustEat, UberEats, AirSorted, Staybeyond and Hostmaker. Since February 2018, over 5000kg of carbon has already been saved through using OXWASH systems and services.
Dr Aron Ping D’Souza, Chairman & Co-Founder Aron and Kyle have worked together for many years in successful fundraising, sporting events and philanthropic ventures. With a background in billion-dollar asset management and in venture capital, Aron is central to the financial management and long term vision of OXWASH. Dr D’Souza read law at the University of Oxford and was a member of Harris Manchester College. Zara French, Operations Manager Zara has a background in growing integrated process and logistics start-ups. With an eye for detail and for the wellbeing of the team, Zara is invaluable to the overall operations of OXWASH.
Investment Raised •OXWASH raised £500k from two early stage VC’s (Force over Mass & Oxford Technology) and strategic value add angel Investors.
Ben Towler, Commercial Manager Ben manages the acquisition and service to OXWASH’s commercial clients. A graduate of the Central St Martins School of Art, he brings a creative skillset to the team’s processes, marketing, and overall vision for sustainability. Joe Haddock, Logistics
The Long-Term Vision OXWASH aims to be the global leaders in closing the loop on unsustainable market behaviours. By implementing a futureproof combination of logistics and washing processes, they will eliminate single use packaging, microplastic pollution and ecosystem degradation by harmful chemical washing processes.
Joe manages the day-to-day logistics of OXWASH making sure that every laundry exchange is on time and every item is clean and ready to wear. As a narrowboat resident, Joe uses OXWASH every week himself and keeps a very close eye on their quality and commitment to sustainability. Jamie Qualter, Customer Experience Jamie is an OXWASH rider as well as their customer experience manager. He has expertise ranging from cycle couriering to county-wide customer service.
15
The Solution
SCALEWORK
Scalework are building a global on-demand data
“Scaling data organisation with analytics and AI”
tasks or complex data projects. Whether it’s a simple
operations platform. They are serving companies with a scalable and secure infrastructure to source, deploy and collaborate with global experts on daily data sales report analysis, or a project for new demand forecasting system, Scalework can provide the optimal experts set-up at less than 50% of the cost of standard full-service consultancies.
www.makescalework.com
Their solution is based on three pillars: 1)
They run an unmatched global sourcing and
vetting operation to select, profile and educate the top 1% of data experts 2)
They streamline the entire data project
delivery chain based on their best practices - from project briefing, data preparation, template solutions, to experts’ education on client industries and use cases. 3)
They provide a secure data collaboration
infrastructure that propels project efficiency and more importantly unlocks access to a global talent pool. Based on their understanding of data science operations, big data infrastructure and data business applications, Scalework standardises data projects end-to-end. Based on these frameworks, they can offer truly scalable, consistently excellent, data operations to companies.
Revenue Model The Scalework business model has extremely attractive
The Problem
margins and earnings quality potential.
While data continues to grow exponentially,
The revenue model will shift over time as they become
companies experience a severe talent shortage
the fully integrated ‘data autobahn’ of the world.
around data projects, resulting in limited capacity and expertise. Data project execution is often
Initially they will be driven by their commission
extremely inefficient, very costly in terms of
revenues of >30% on daily rates of experts.
organisation,
communication
and
knowledge
transfer, and often requires additional outside
Eventually they will be driven by platform access and
expertise. At the same time, the freelance data
ongoing deployment of analytics models on their
experts market is extremely opaque and inefficient.
platform (MLaaS, Iaas).
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impactful serviced ai for everyone. Traction and Impact To date, ScaleWork have very quickly accomplished the following only having launched in Jan 2019: • Onboarded Co-founder team • Built and refined core hypothesis based on market and expert research; built out business proposition • Secured first clients and already deployed first remote data science projects • Built and deployed MVP of their remote data project collaboration platform • Gained support from Wayra Telefonica and the
The Team
Oxford Foundry
Frederic Krahforst, CEO & Co-Founder Frederic has a MSc in Information and Software Security from Kellogg College,
Investment Raised Co-founder
funded
and
bootstrapped
Oxford, a MSc in Finance from Rotterdam School of Management, and a BSc (cash
commitment ~£100k to date).
in Knowledge Engineering from Maastricht University. He was formerly CEO & Co-founder of hawk:AI, and VP of Data and VP of Strategy & Operations at European Media conglomerate. Frederic has more than 5 years experience in the Venture Capital and Banking sectors.
Long Term vision Scalework will grow and become increasingly integrated into client data pipelines. Eventually their infrastructure will serve to onboard, execute and deploy analytics and Ai solutions. They are effectively building the world’s data collaboration and hosting platform on the back of a unique talent and experts’ solution. At the same time, they are breaking global market barriers by enabling a more evenly distributed experts job market. They are helping to build global careers around data - already
Tobias Nendel, CTO & Co-Founder Tobias has a BSc in Information Systems from the Technical University Munich and a CDTM Honors Degree. He is a successful serial entrepreneur, including as CTO & Co-Founder of Outfittery (£60+m raise to date), Co-Founder of Medikura Digital Health, and others. Professor Dr Michael Bücker, CSO & Co-Founder Michael is a Professor of Data Science at the Münster School of Business at FH Münster University of Applied Sciences. He has a PhD in Statistics and a Diploma in Statistics from TU Dortmund University, and spent 7 years as Data Science Lead at McKinsey & Company.
starting now in Nigeria and Ghana.
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The Solution See-Through have designed a unique (UK and US
See-through scientific
patent pending) hardware and software approach that synthesises digital holographic microscopy (DHM), machine learning, and a novel fluidic system. Unlike other approaches, that use biochemical or size information to distinguish CTCs from blood cells, their approach makes use of cell morphology information (which includes accurate size measurement). The fluidic process leverages distinctive features of DHM,
“Enabling earlier genomic analyses of tumours, and personalised, timely treatment of cancer”
and hence can use large apertures and low flow rates, meaning negligible damaging shear forces and applicability to small cells and large clusters alike. DHM has only recently become feasible, due to the emergence of powerful parallel computing graphical processing units (GPUs) and the See-Through team
www.see-through.com
holds rare expertise in its implementation. From a user perspective, the product will be innovative in allowing the enrichment and isolation of individual viable cells and clusters in a fully
The Problem
automated manner, at a small bench space, with very few supporting instruments. With one universal flow
See-Through’s unique device was developed to
cell type, and by flexible software options, the user will
aid the enrichment and isolation of ultra-rare
arbitrarily enrich for alternative cell sizes, densities,
circulating tumour cells (CTCs) from blood. CTCs
or morphologies. Of the enriched cells, individual
are the cells responsible for the spread of cancer
cells or clusters will be automatically isolated into
through the blood stream to secondary tumour
a pipette tip for input into a downstream single-cell
sites. Typically symptoms are experienced after
experiments. The in-line CAR-T cell monitoring device
this metastasis has occurred, by which time it can
was designed through an industrial R&D collaboration
be too late for surgical resection, the most effective
and could allow significant cost savings in generating
treatment. Metastasis effectively is the cause of
personalised cell therapies.
death in 90% of cases. CTCs are both very rare and difficult to distinguish from background blood cells, but if they could be enriched it would be a way to cheaply and safely track a patient’s disease and
Revenue Model
deliver personalised and timely treatments. See-Through’s work to date has been purely R&D, and Along the way, See-Through established an industry
they have further validation to complete. Revenue
collaboration to fulfill a cell therapy manufacturing
could come in the form of device sales, recurrent
need, for a simple system to monitor proliferation
(consumable) flowcell sales, software platform usage
and viability of CAR-T cells in the incubator. As it is,
or subscription. They are in communication with
this is a labour intensive process. They pursued this
likely future users to better understand their spending
second project, as the system they would develop
constraints. Initial sales will be into research and the
could make use of the same software platform they
pharmaceutical industry, and later into the larger
had built for the CTC enrichment device.
clinical markets.
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Investment Raised See-Through were awarded a one-year grant from Innovate UK starting in mid 2016 (Technology
making next-generation cancer treatments cheaper and more accessible.
Inspired Innovation – Biosciences – feasibility studies’, £104342), then a two year Cancer Research UK grant (‘Pioneer Award’, £199,990) starting in
The Team
late 2017, and also a 10-month Innovate UK grant (Medecines Manufacturing – Feasibility Studies, Total £93,293) partnered with Oxford Mestar.
Long Term vision The overall impact that See-Through wish to have is to make next-generation cancer treatments cheaper and hence more accessible to the public. Their vision is to build highly useful specialised biomedical devices that fit into the cancer ecosystem to alleviate bottlenecks in processing. The devices will likely be based upon the technological advantage they have in their software platform. With their machine learning-enabled system, they expect to be able to continuously receive significant volumes of training data, such that they can continuously update their models and
Dr Irwin Zaid, Co-Founder Irwin is trained as a computer scientist and physicist. He has a doctorate in Theoretical Physics from the University of Oxford (2012). His doctoral work, which was based around digital holographic microscopy, led to the award of a Junior Research Fellowship from Christ Church, University of Oxford. He has had a distinguished academic career with highly cited publications in biological physics, and is a lecturer in Computer Science at Christ Church. Dr Oliver Harriman, Co-Founder Oliver has degrees in physics and engineering. He worked in industry on the early formulation of Sugru, and solved opto-mechanical design challenges for Laser Quantum Ltd. He developed expertise in optical system design and the imaging of live cancer cells during his doctorate in the Oxford University Department of Physics (2013), and knowledge of microfluidic fabrication techniques during a JSPS fellowship in the Tokyo University Department of Applied Chemistry. In Oxford, he successfully captained the University Amateur Boxing team for the 2011-12 season.
increase value to their customers.
19
The Solution SociAbility is a mobile app that lets users quickly and easily find detailed access information for social venues. Think Google Maps for access information. Think functional, intuitive and reliable. SociAbility never assumes a user’s needs or abilities. They avoid vague, subjective labels like ‘accessible’ or ‘inaccessible’, because these aren’t helpful or adequate-
sociability
ly descriptive. Instead, SociAbility provides clear and
“Empowering people of all abilities to greater social engagement”
to judge accessibility for themselves everywhere, every
www.sociability.app
Access information is only empowering at scale. To
@sociabilityapp
build a comprehensive database, SociAbility partners
reliable details about key access features of a venue, like entrances, interior spaces and bathrooms. In this way, SociAbility gives users the information they need time. This level of detail also helps venues to better understand what accommodations customers need, want and currently lack. This is more constructive, productive and practical than vague, scary labels.
with local organisations to build dedicated networks of supporters that help them gather this information. They’re building a crowdsourced database by the community, for the community.
Revenue Model SociAbility is targeting three key future revenue streams, with a focus on first building a functional,
The Problem
intuitive and valuable product for a strong, dedicated
For people with access needs—whether disabled, elderly or pushing a pram—knowing whether a venue is accessible in advance is crucial to having peace of mind, and enjoying meaningful inclusion. Yet, even in 2019, there is no comprehensive, reliable source of access information for social and retail venues. Some lack detail and accuracy, most lack adequate coverage, while others feature only large public institutions like hospitals. Not the places you want to hang out! Because finding accessibility information is tiring, tedious and time-consuming, socialising becomes a chore, a stress and something to avoid. As a wheelchair user himself, SociAbility founder & CEO—Matt Pierri—faced this challenge every day. Through countless conversations, Matt soon realised that this was an unmet need for millions of other people living with access needs worldwide— whether disabled, elderly, pushing a pram or otherwise. After years of trying, and failing, to find a reliable, painless solution to this problem, Matt decided to create his own: SociAbility.
and reliable user base. 1. Content Syndication (through licence/profit sharing/white label agreements) - SociAbility provides an important information service to countless users that complements many existing platforms, services and organisations—from multinationals like TripAdvisor, OpenTable or Google Maps, to local players like schools and aged-care homes. They see significant potential to create strong, mutually beneficial and profitable partnerships with such players. 2. Venue Subscription for Premium Features - SociAbility will offer interested venues access to premium business features for a reasonable yearly subscription. Premium features will include receiving key insights and analytics on user needs and wants, responding to user comments and reviews and curating their business profile with up-to-date information and images. Given the significant and largely untapped spending power of people with access needs, a SociAbility premium subscription will form an indispensable part of every venue’s marketing budget.
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3. Consulting and Accreditation Work There is also strong potential to develop an accessibility consulting and accreditation business that leverages SociAbility’s strong user-base and high volume of high-quality data. This could be particularly fruitful for large, national and international chains with lots of physical stores—and particularly the many businesses with clear, public commitments to improving access and inclusion.
500 SUPPORTERS & LOCAL PARTNER ORGANISATIONS
The Team Matt Pieri , CEO and Co-Founder Matt leads the SociAbility team on its mission to empower greater social inclusion
Traction and Impact SociAbility has grown quickly and impressively since
through better access information. As founder & CEO, Matt oversees the day-to-day operations of SociAbility, and manages key partnership relations, fundraising and product testing, as well as guiding SociAbility’s broader strategic vision and mission.
launching in early October 2018. In little more than 6
Emma Bluemke, Head of Operations
months, they have: grown their network of partners,
Emma is in charge of all-things-operational at SociAbility, working hard to keep
supporters and advisors; raised £50,000 in pre-seed funding; built their MVP and launched in Oxford with a network of almost 500 supporters and local partner
everything running smoothly and on track to hit their milestones and goals. She has a DPhil in Biomedical Engineering from New College, Oxford.
organisations. They’re excited and ready to tackle the
Julien Sanders, Head of Product
next challenge of scaling around the UK and beyond!
Julien is SociAbility’s resident technical expert and passionate about building mobile apps and software products that best empower our users. Julien is a Data Scientist
Investment Raised
at Dentsu Aegis in London and has previously worked at the Financial Times and Channel 4.
SociAbility has raised almost £50,000 to date in pre-
Anna Lavrova, Head of Marketing
seed funding from family, friends and grants. SociA-
Anna is passionate about connecting SociAbility with the right audiences and partners
bility is currently raising its first seed funding round in 3-6 months time.
to grow their user base and maximise their data collection. She is a Commercial Project Manager at Dentsu Aegis in London and has significant experience with programmatic marketing and advertising.
The Long-Term Vision By making access information more available, reliable and useful, SociAbility empowers people with access needs to spend more time with their friends, family and partners, and to navigate the built environment with more confidence, purpose and ease.
Dr Andrés Noé, Head of Strategy Andrés is passionate about empowering users to enjoy greater social inclusion with a particular view to achieving better health outcomes. As the resident medical doctor in the team, Andrés works to ensure that SociAbility remains as helpful and functional as possible to a broad base of users and faithful to their impact-focused mission. Andrès has a DPhil in Clinical Medicine from Green Templeton College, Oxford.
Over the next 3-5 years, they’re on a mission to make
Kaleem Hawa, Head of Partnerships
the world a more sociable place for all by boosting so-
Kaleem is passionate about growing SociAbility’s network of partners and supporters
cial inclusion, engagement and representation. They’re working towards a more inclusive and empowering world for all, where those with access needs—and disabled people, in particular—are able to navigate the built environment with confidence, purpose and ease.
to maximise their impact and reach. With experience in management consulting and public sector work, Kaleem works to ensure that SociAbility remains connected to all the right players to help make the world a more sociable place for all. Kaleem has a DPhil in Population Health from Lincoln College, Oxford.
21
wow you! “Affordable, crueltyfree, naturally powered skincare for the millennial consumer” www.wowyou.com
The Solution WOW YOU! produces clean skincare range with natural ingredients which doesn’t break the bank. They blend scientifically proven active ingredientswith natural, gentle bases to provide effective skincare which works for all skin types. They’ve had over 200 five star reivews, and a less than 1% refund rate. They’re building a direct to customer community of women who are fed up with being lied to by the large corporations and who value ethical transparency and honesty. They are concentrating mainly on their direct-to-customer
The Problem
channel, but they have also carefully selected to work with major retailers who help to build brand awareness
Often natural, organic and cruelty free skincare is expensive and uninspiring. There are also a lot of unethical practices in the industry, for example;
and credibility such as Urban Outfitters.
Revenue Model
companies saying their products are cruelty free but selling them in China where animal testing
WOW YOU! sells products direct-to-customer via their
is mandatory. Formulations purporting to be
own website. They also work with a handful of carefully
gentle and for sensitive skin often contain harsh
selected retailers in the UK & USA to help promote
ingredients and synthetic fragrances which instead
the brand and add credibility. They are looking to
leave it irritated. This led WOW YOU! founder Ella
concentrate primarily on growing their direct to
to question what she was putting on her skin which
consumer channel as this is where they can ensure a
was making her eczema worse, rather than better.
brilliant customer experience and greater margin.
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Traction and Impact WOW YOU! have had over 1000 orders via their website, with a repeat customer rate in April 2019 of 32%. They are stocked by 3 major US retailers, including Urban Outfitters, Riley Rose (Forever21) and Aerie (American Eagle). They have also been selected to join the Boots Plc ‘Beauty Finds’ program in the UK, where Boots will stock the products in 80
stocked in urban outfitters, forever 21 & American eagle.
of their top performing stores for 12 weeks.
The Team Investment Raised WOW YOU! have boot strapped so far and are now looking to raise their first round of investment. They are now looking to raise approximately £300k £500k over the next 3-6 months.
Ella O’Connor, Co-founder and CEO At a young age, Ella was inspired by her entrepreneurial late Grandfather, Jon Carlsen, who invented the alloy wheel and produced wheels for car manufacturers globally. Graduating from her MEng Materials Science degree at Corpus Christi College in 2017, Ella went into a graduate research scientist role at Dyson. Noticing a gap in the skincare market from her own experiences with
Long Term vision
trying to find cruelty free products suitable for her skin, Ella quit her job and
WOW YOU! would like to be at the forefront of
footsteps and has a passion for solving problems innovatively and resourcefully.
ethical, inclusive & clean beauty with a range of highly effective products. They want to disrupt the beauty industry’s outdated standards of flawless, airbrushed skin and instead represent everyone, showcasing real skin so they can recognise themselves in the images they see. The WOW YOU’re beautiful philosophy is all about celebrating your skin, even if it’s not “perfect” and giving it the skincare it deserves. The brand wants to be admired for helping everyone feel good in their skin – no
started WOW YOU! with Leo in 2018. She is driven to follow in her Grandfather’s
Leo Greenaway, Co-founder and CEO Leo was born in Hong Kong and moved to the UK in 1997. He was studying business and entrepreneurship at university when he was temporarily paralysed from the chest downwards by a rare auto-immune illness. He then spent almost a year in hospital recovering and learning how to walk again. He soon realised that he didn’t need to return to university and instead set up his own online advertising & website building business. He has a drive and a passion to learn, improve and reach his goals and WOW YOU! is the result of years of determination and hard work.
matter what!
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