The Accelerate@Babraham initiative gives access to appropriate short-term open access laboratory and office space, facilitating interaction with the academic community at the Babraham Institute and providing access to our global network, including mentoring and business support.
A key activity within the Accelerate@Babraham initiative is the annual StartUP@Babraham competition. The competition supports ideas and/or companies that are pre-seed to seed stage (below £500k investment), the core objective of which is to help create new jobs, technology and therapies and to maximise the impact of the Cambridge life science cluster, both nationally and internationally.
Via a rigorous and competitive application and selection process, up to five early stage life sciences enterprises are selected to take part in the 5-month bio-entrepreneurial programme. In addition, the ventures also receive £10k non-diluted funding and access to shared free lab and office space. Participation on the programme enhances the opportunity to gain investment via proactive exposure to investors and pharma partners.
Applications for the third StartUP@Babraham competition opened on March 1st; the programme itself will start in September 2020. Given the current environment due to COVID-19 the application deadline has been extended to June 17th.
Shortlisted applicants will be notified by July 1st and will be invited to pitch to our judging panel of business leaders via video or conference call in mid-July.
Having spoken to all shortlisted applicants, the judges will choose up to five winning finalists to be accepted onto the programme.