Barclays Eagle Labs officially launches in Oxford

Barclays Eagle Labs has officially opened its doors in Oxford at The Oxford Trust’s The Wood Centre for Innovation in Headington’s Health & Life Sciences District.

Barclays Eagle Labs provides start-ups with virtual events, content and tools.

To celebrate, the Oxford Barclays Eagle Lab will be hosting a week-long series of online launch events covering a range of topics, starting with Entrepreneurs in Oxford: how to scale and succeed on Tuesday 6^th October.  The online events are open to any local business owner or start-up business in the science or tech sector wanting to find out more about how to survive and thrive in the current economic environment.

Oxford is one of a network of 25 Barclays Eagle labs helping nearly 2,000 entrepreneurs to grow their businesses from the places where they live and work. The new Eagle Lab Oxford has space for up to 48 entrepreneurs [although with current social distancing space, this is limited to 20] and is focussed on science and tech start-ups aimed at supporting spinout scientists, university graduates and entrepreneurs. Already five local businesses have signed-up to use the space, including Fuel3D, Oxford RF Solutions, Impair (incorporating Impair.ai & CarGuide.co.uk), Quorbit and Primea Ltd – Samplesafe.App.

The Barclays Eagle Labs network is one of the largest incubator network for start-ups and scale-ups in the UK, providing a platform to connect the UK’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. The Labs are spaces to help entrepreneurs and ambitious businesses of all sizes, to access a broad range of skills to stimulate innovation, promote collaboration and enable skills development across a range of areas.

Residents at the Eagle Lab will be supported by Nicki Campling, the on-site Barclays ecosystem manager and Matt Lucas, the dedicated Eagle Lab manager, who have been appointed to provide technical expertise, mentoring connections, networking and thought-leadership events to help science and tech businesses flourish. In addition, Barclays’ local business banking teams and specialist high-growth managers will also provide entrepreneur banking support to help maximise and accelerate their growth.

Nicki Campling said: “Being based at The Oxford Trust’s innovation centre in Headington is a great fit due to its location, beautiful new building and curated community. Our new space is now fit for purpose and to celebrate our official opening, we are hosting an exciting line-up of online events which we hope will resonate with science, tech start-ups and entrepreneurs.”

Steve Burgess, CEO of The Oxford Trust added: “We are really pleased to see Barclays Eagle Labs Oxford officially launch at The Wood Centre for Innovation. With the focus on early stage science and tech entrepreneurs, it is a great partnership for the Trust and will further help our mission to encourage the pursuit of enterprise by enabling us to further support innovative businesses in the Oxford area.”

Barclays Eagle Labs’ week-long series of online launch events also includes a COVID-19 success story showcasing how Isansys Lifecare grew under lockdown on Wednesday 7^th October, and a panel of speakers will discuss the new funding landscape on Thursday 8^th October. The series will finish on Friday 9^th October with a fireside chat with Spintex Engineering, a new business that has recently located at The Wood Centre for Innovation. For a complete listing of launch events, see here.

The space continues to be carefully curated by the Eagle Lab managers and Oxford Innovation, which runs The Wood Centre for Innovation on behalf of The Oxford Trust, to ensure it is COVID-secure and that residents and colleagues feel safe. All those working from Eagle Lab Oxford will receive a full briefing before starting.