We are pleased to announce that our member companies created a record 300 new jobs in 2023.

They also generated over £45 million in revenues and raised a combined £50 million in funding.

The sectors with the highest number of jobs created were fintech, healthtech and engineering.

Seventeen of the new jobs were created by Loqbox, a wellbeing business focused on financial health. With a bigger team, it has achieved significant growth, helping 2 million people to date to access a richer life by building their credit scores and growing their savings.

Healthtech startup, getUBetter created 12 new jobs to advance its digital self-management support platform for muscoskeletal injuries and women’s pelvic health. Its app is now used in over a third of NHS England.

University of Bristol spinout, Actuation Lab, created 10 new jobs. Last year, the R&D startup was awarded £3.5 million from the Department for Energy Security and Zero’s Net Zero to support development of its novel gas valve, designed to prevent gas leakage and enable the scaling of hydrogen as a clean energy source in the industrial and aerospace sectors.

Simon Bates, Actuation Lab’s CEO, said: “In 2022, our team worked incredibly hard to secure development contracts, grants and investment to develop key components for the hydrogen supply chain. When they came to fruition, we needed to rapidly expand our team in 2023. Having a strong connection to SETsquared and the University of Bristol has helped us find a group of incredibly motivated team members from operations to engineering.”

We recognise that this growth needs to be sustainable and inclusive – our specific programmes, initiatives and events continue to support under-represented and minoritised groups into tech entrepreneurship. This includes our Enterprising Women programme, fully funded by NatWest, and inclusivity HR training for our companies, delivered by Babbasa.

Leadership diversity in 2023 saw an increase amongst our companies, with 49% being led by a women founder or C-Suite member. Furthermore, 25% of the total investment raises in 2023 came from our women-led companies.

Our Director, Kimberley Brook, said: “We’re thrilled to see the impact our companies are having on creation of new jobs for the region and wider, and the breadth of diverse founders finding success in our incubation programmes. We look forward to building on this for 2024.”                                                                                       

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SETsquared Bristol is part of Bristol Innovations, the University of Bristol’s catalyst for innovation.
We offer innovation-led organisations access to cutting-edge research, technology and talent, creating breakthrough solutions and scalable commercial opportunities that drive growth.