After a wonderful few years working with SETsquared Bristol, my time at the tech incubator has come to an end as I move on to a new role as Head of Memberships for Capital Enterprise. 

I joined SETsquared Bristol in 2022 and became its Director in early 2023 with the aim to use my knowledge gained from the University of Bristol’s quantum pre-incubator, QTEC, to provide a greater focus on deeptech incubation support, alongside offering more founder training opportunities and expanding our membership base. 

To develop our programmes, we put into practice the same techniques we teach our startups, undertaking market research and discovery to develop a new suite of training courses and an early stage incubation programme, Quest. It was a new direction for our incubator but with the support of our team and our Entrepreneurs in Residence we launched our new programmes in 2023 to great success and have continued to innovate to scale our business offering. 

These changes have allowed us to increase the number of companies we support to 100+ incubation members, with a further 200+ individuals supported each year in our training programmes. 

Alongside leading the incubator, I continued supporting entrepreneurs directly, from providing training for university students and researchers and mentoring sessions for businesses in our programmes, to running roundtables for companies working in the same sector and supporting companies with fundraising and investor connections. Working directly with founders has been something I have loved the most and I feel truly privileged to have seen so many of them grow and flourish over the past few years. 

This year, as part of the SETsquared Partnership, we were announced as the UK’s Top Start-Up Hub and the 3rd highest in Europe. This incredible accolade is thanks to the patient support we offer to our members, the knowledge and support of our phenomenal advisers in residence who provide pro-bono support, our mentors, who bring their unique expertise to our companies, and the fantastic SETsquared Bristol team who work tirelessly to provide a supportive environment for our founders to grow their businesses.

Thank you to all of those who have engaged with SETsquared Bristol over the past few years – it has truly been an honour to work with you and I hope you stay in touch with me in the future. A final thank you to my incredible team within SETsquared Bristol, as well as the Future Finance and Engine Shed teams at the University of Bristol. You are all amazing and provide a wonderfully warm and welcoming environment for anyone looking to engage with the ecosystem within Bristol. Onwards and upwards!  

Find out about SETsquared Bristol’s incubation programmes.