Co-Labs by journey are excited to announce our inclusion at the second Cambridge Wide Open Day. We will be hosting a series of talks and workshops, all focussed around early stage companies. 

Guest speakers include CPI, Oury Clark and Cambridge Consultants covering topics including fund raising, government grants and investments. These will sit alongside a number of founders who will take us on their journey so far. 

Please join us and confirm your attendance through this short form.
10:30am until 3pm on 12^th June at 93 Lawrence Weaver Rd, Cambridge CB3 0LE

10:30am

Can Cambridge become the next Silicon Valley?
Speaker Laura Grimwood  /  Co-Laboratories

Co-Laboratories is a lab space provider and community builder that helps startups by being as flexible, affordable and connected as they require. We do this through operating our own spaces and in collaboration with partners. Co-Labs by journey, Cambridge will be our first partner site in the UK.

Co-Labs was founded by Laura Grimwood, a scientist forced to relocate to the USA with her startup in 2015 due to lack of appropriate space. The problem wasn’t fixed in the 7 years she spent understanding the US startup culture and she has brought the lessons learnt to help the UK infrastructure.

11:00am

Translating Research to Commercial with CPI
Speaker Matthew McCann  /  CPI

Matt is responsible for deal origination and investor relations at CPI Enterprises, the ventures arm of CPI, where he sources investment opportunities at pre-seed and seed across AgriFoodTech, Energy, Materials, HealthTech and Pharma. Matt holds a BSc Biology (Industrial) from the University of Leeds and an MPhil Bioscience Enterprise from the University of Cambridge.

11:20am

What Should I Worry About? 5 Things to Bear in Mind when Raising Money
Speaker Philippa Sturt  /  Oury Clark

Philippa joined Oury Clark Solicitors in 2021, having previously been a partner since 2012 in a London firm. She advises on all types of corporate transactions and commercial matters, but absolutely loves to work with start-ups and growing companies. She is experienced in advising on acquisitions and disposals, acting for both sellers and buyers, MBOs and company reorganizations as well as company law, shareholder matters, employee incentives and commercial agreements.

Philippa focuses particularly on investments and fundraisings as well as shareholder arrangements. In particular, she has acted for numerous start-up businesses in the food and beverage, FMCG and tech sectors in relation to equity and debt investments all the way from seed capital to series A, B and C fundraises. She advises on SEIS and EIS investments and has shepherded a number of businesses through crowdfunding rounds, as well as advising on employee incentive schemes, particularly EMI option schemes, CSOPs and growth share schemes.

11:50am

Zonova – Our Journey So Far
Speaker Dr Georgia Fleet  /  Zonova

Georgia is dedicated to revolutionising how we tackle infectious diseases and the growing antimicrobial resistance crisis. She has 7+ years experience developing medical devices in both industry and academia, the last 5 focused specifically on antimicrobial materials. She started Zonova in 2023 after getting her dog Pickles, with the aim of tackling the antimicrobial resistance crisis with solutions for both animals and humans using a ‘one medicine’ approach.

Zonova has developed antimicrobial technology that can be easily embedded into standard, commercially available, medical devices (like sutures, catheters, drains, etc). Our technology fights infections at the source, reducing both the risk of infection and need to use antibiotics. Our mission is to help address the global antimicrobial resistance crisis by providing an effective alternative for both animal and human health.

12:30pm

Commercialisation: Company Structures for Venture Building
Speaker Nicholas Oyeniyi  /  Vestd

Vestd is a share scheme and equity management platform. Our easy-to-use FCA-regulated software helps businesses manage their shares and options in real time, and keeps an accurate live cap table. With direct integration to Companies House, Vestd creates and maintains your single source of truth.

Guy Kaufman, heads up the Startups team at Vestd and has years of experience helping founders set up companies, equity agreements and raise investment.

1:00pm

Science Entrepreneur Club: The Power of a Well-connected Community
Speaker Matthew McCann  /  SEC & Biocapital Network

Matt supports the non-profit Science Entrepreneur Club where he founded and heads up the BioCapital Network, a community of almost 300 life science investors that represent over 180 unique funds and several Angels, all actively investing in UK-based life sciences. Prior to his current roles, Matt worked on refining commercial strategies for a number of university spin-outs, start-ups, an incubator and a VC fund and has previously worked in start-up recruitment and talent consultancy. Matt holds a BSc Biology (Industrial) from the University of Leeds and an MPhil Bioscience Enterprise from the University of Cambridge.

1:20pm

Evolaris – Our Journey So Far
Speaker Dr Mariana Rangel Pereira  /  Evolaris

Evoralis is an early-stage Biotech spin-out from the University of Cambridge with a mission to enable a sustainable depolymerisation and recycling of synthetic polymers. Around 110 million tonnes of synthetic fibres are produced worldwide each year, but the end-of-life for textile products is either downcycling into lower grade materials, being sent to landfill or incinerated. Currently, less than 1% of the textile is recycled from fibre-to-fibre. At Evoralis, a unique ultrahigh-throughput screening platform based on a microfluidic technology is applied to find and improve plastic-depolymerising enzymes that can break down plastics into their constituent building-blocks to be re-used in making new fibres. Biocatalysts can be tested at unprecedented speed, making the discovery of enzymes up to 1,000 times faster than using any current screening method.

1:40pm

Learnings and Challenges in Building a Biotech Startup 11000 km Away from Home
Speaker Dr Elijah Mojares  /  Momo Bio

Elijah is a molecular biologist by training that cofounded a bike sharing startup in the Philippines. He got his MRes in Bioengineering from Imperial College London and his PhD in Medical Engineering from Queen Mary University of London. His research background has always been engineering cellular environments – studying how cells interact and grow on new types of materials in the context of cancer and stem cells. 

MOMO Biotech is building the build-test-learn platform for biology to transform drug development – starting with cancer. We’re making clinical trials leaner and smarter with our clinical-trial-on-a-chip system that generates unique insights throughout the drug development process.

2:20pm

Accelerate Protein Design by Harnessing LLMs
Speaker Cambridge Consultants

Cambridge Consultants are Capgemini’s global deep tech innovation specialists, spearheading high-impact, transformative and societally beneficial projects for the world’s biggest brands and most ambitious start-ups.

2:40pm

Co-Labs by journey
Speaker Laura Grimwood  /  Co-Labs by journey

Co-Labs by journey will bring forward affordable, fully-fitted labs catering to Cambridge’s start-up community across two phases, due for delivery in summer 2024 and spring 2025.

journey is a real estate company focused on facilitating innovation in key UK knowledge economies. We have a particular focus on the early-stage community. This growing cohort of new companies find accessing the right space and equipment a challenge. Our goal is to bring forward a variety of spaces in central locations that facilitate the seed to growth journey.

Our mission is to enhance the working and living experience of our customers whilst they focus on developing their research and venture. We specialise in delivering flexible and fitted spaces so that our customers can plug-in immediately and focus on their core activities

Logistics

There is onsite car and bicycle parking. On arrival, please sign-in at reception. Please note there will be photography at the event. Finally, there will be refreshments and nibbles throughout the day.

Co-Labs by journey will bring forward affordable, fully-fitted labs catering to Cambridge’s start-up community across two phases, due for delivery in summer 2024 and spring 2025. For scientists just starting out and require a bench, or those with multiple fund raises secured and in need of private space.