Milbotix announce investment round and grant funding for SmartSocks™

Zeke Steer, Founder of Milbotix with Smart Sensor Sock. Photo credit to St Monica Trust

University of Bristol spinout Milbotix has announced an investment round to complete the development of its SmartSocks™ product line, which aims to help millions of people living with dementia, non-verbal autism and other conditions that affect communication. SmartSocks™ is being developed in collaboration with the UK Dementia Research Institute and University of Exeter Medical School.…

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Safetytech startup spacebands overfunded at £1m investment

spacebands founders smiling sitting on sofa in living room

spacebands, a startup that creates software and wearable technology to make workplaces safer, has overfunded its initial seed investment target of £600,000 to hit a total of £1m investment. It has also been approved for Innovate UK’s Future Economy Fund grant of £250,000.  The startup was founded by award-winning entrepreneurs Harry Kimberley-Bowen and Ronan Finnegan…

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Introducing Kimberley Brook, Interim Director at SETsquared Bristol

Kimberley Brook, Interim Director at SETsquared Bristol

We’re delighted to welcome Kimberley Brook as our new interim Director at SETsquared Bristol. As Director, Kim will focus on the strategic growth of our incubation and pre-incubation programmes, alongside the development of corporate partnerships and investor relations.  Kim takes the helm from Marty Reid who has taken up the role of Interim Executive Director…

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Anna-Lisa Wesley: Down with the elevator pitch, up with good chat

Anna-Lisa Wesley at SETsquared Bristol

Anna-Lisa Wesley, Entrepreneur in Residence at SETsquared Bristol, shares her six-step guide to get through informal pitch situations with your reputation intact and maybe even a few hot leads. For as long as I’ve been in business we‘ve been talking about refining the elevator pitch. That idea that an entrepreneur might serendipitously find themselves in…

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Emm develops world’s first biowearable for female health

Emm team - three people outside smiling

Emm, a Bristol-based biotech startup, has developed a first-of-its-kind biowearable with the potential to revolutionise female health. Having closed its pre-seed funding of over $1million, it is now in Beta testing, readying for full production and launch in 2023. Founded in 2020, the company joined SETsquared Bristol in May 2021 and is working in partnership…

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Diverse founders are worth investing in – Paul Forster

Paul, Anna-Lisa and Lara Lalemi at Enterprising Women 2.0 Showcase

It’s a fitting time for an update on SETsquared Bristol’s equality, diversity and inclusion work as October is Black History Month, plus Ada Lovelace Day, Dyslexia Awareness Week and Diwali all fall within this month. Yet it’s been only a year since my last update, and year can be a short time in the world…

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Gritty Talent: Connecting underrepresented talent with the TV industry

Following our member Gritty Talent’s recent pre-seed funding success with Innovate UK and partnership with Channel 4, we had a chat with Founder and CEO, Mel Rodrigues, to hear her story… Gritty Talent key facts Start date: 2019 Market sector: TV and Film (Createch) Location: Bristol Number of employees: 11 Company growth status: High growth startup In your own words…

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Biotech spin-out Ferryx secures seed funding

Bristol-based biotech startup, Ferryx, has raised £300k seed capital from Deepbridge Capital for further development of its innovative solution to common gut problems. Ferryx is a University of Bristol spin-out company that joined SETsquared Bristol in 2020 and has since won ‘Best Elevator Pitch’ at our Tech-Xpo 2021 Showcase. The company aims to tackle the…

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Thinking differently: Neurodiversity in early-stage companies – Jack Jordan-Connelly

ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) shares a common trait with many other mental health conditions, in which most people assume they have a ‘pretty good understanding’ of it, without actually realising the variety of ways it can manifest or affect day-to-day behaviour. I followed the not uncommon path of exhibiting extreme hyperactivity as a child…

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