Image courtesy Cambridge Enterprise
Chemistry graduate student Andrew Marsden accepted first prize on behalf of his team at Immaterial in the postdoc business plan competition in December.
Andrew, a Phd student in Jane Clarke’s research group, is CEO of Immaterial, in which he became involved through an iTeams project in 2014. Immaterial’s technology, invented by team members Dr David Fairen-Jimenez and Tian Tian of the Department of Chemical Enginering, consists of a porous material that can be put inside a gas tank, enabling it to store up to 16 times as much gas at the same pressure and in the same volume.
The first-ever postdoc business plan competition, run by Cambridge Enterprise (CE) and the Entrepreneurial Postdocs of Cambridge (EPOC), required the entrants to progress through several rounds of judging to reach the final, including 20 minute pitches where they were questioned on the finer details of their technology and business plans, and offered mentoring from industry experts to improve their ideas. Of the field of contestants, four teams made it to the finals
As Director of the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, Professor Chris Abell of the Chemistry Department awarded the £15,000 cash prize.
Andrew said, “It was an excellent opportunity for us to develop our plan for commercialisation and justify every aspect of our thinking. We are looking forward to building on the strong basis we have developed and using the funding to support a feasibility study of industrial scale production.”
Anne Dobrée, Head of Cambridge Enterprise Seed Funds, which provided the investment prizes, said, “All of the finalists were of high calibre, as was clear from the quality of the pitches. The teams said that they found the mentoring stage of the competition very useful in improving their business plans. We wish them all luck.”
As the winner, Immaterial’s team will have an opportunity to pitch their idea to investors at one of CE’s Venture Partners dinners, an investor forum of venture capitalists and business angels with more than £4 billion of funds under management by members.
Andrew hopes to complete his Viva in April 2016, after which he will take up a postdoc position in the lab of Dr David Fairen-Jimenez, to work with him and Tian Tian on the business development of Immaterial.
The postdoc business plan competition will be open to contestants again in 2016.
Andrew and the Immaterial team also won 1st prize at the RSC Emerging Technologies Competition in July 2015.
Article adapted from an article by kind permission of Cambridge Enterprise.