Innovation to inspire at Venturefest South 2022

Around 1000 visitors turned up at Southampton’s Ageas Bowl to meet some of the best innovators, entrepreneurs and investors at Venturefest South, the region’s annual innovation festival.

Millions of pounds of investment, funding and development opportunities were available to local start-ups, scale-ups and businesses at the event's sixth iteration.

This year, funded places were given to 47 innovators, more than 50 innovators signed up for the £10,000 Battle of the Pitches competition and 12 entered the Open Mic events. 

The programme also engages with networks and initiatives, including Innovate UK KTN, Women in Innovation, Young Innovators, The Indian Business Group, Hampshire Chamber of Commerce, Business South, Creative Network South, and more. 

The different sections of the event

The event was split into multiple zones. In the collaboration zone, attendees were welcomed to the event in the morning, and had the opportunity to talk to Venturefest South’s founding partners throughout the day.

Sitting adjacent was the Innovation Zone, where attendees could meet the innovators, entrepreneurs and businesses driving the south’s innovation agenda. Alongside inventions, ranging from BEAMZ’s wooden bikes to Fever Checker Pro’s hands free facial temperature checker, were stands from universities, offering a peek into the future of innovative technologies, and investors and organisations who facilitate the south’s innovation ecosystem.

Throughout the day, visitors had the opportunity to join talks in the innovation zone, featuring expert guest speakers, covering the life of an innovator, skills and entrepreneurship, and funding, finance and opportunities.

Speakers included Jayne Sime, Senior Enterprise and Skills Executive in the Growth Hub team at the Solent LEP; Sue Elliott, Senior Manager, UK Network, South East, British Business Bank and representatives from The FSE Group, Dstl, Innovate UK KTN, and many more.

Downstairs, the Workshop Zone hosted a Maritime UK Solent Innovation Panel and Networking sessions, where industry experts, Innovate UK, University of Portsmouth and the Institute of Technology discussed the support available to fund innovation in maritime and collaboration within the sector.

This was followed by the Net Zero 360 Masterclass, delivered in collaboration with Southampton City Council and Clean Growth UK, which introduced attendees to Net Zero 360, which is a net zero business accelerator.

Across the courtyard in the Ageas Suite, the New Entrepreneurs Zone showcased the next generation of talent rising in the region. Some of the exiting ideas on display included two games developers: Zeta Labs and Lost Realm Studios; all-in-one ship management software, Ship Manager; and Stitch.LDN, a clothing brand making use of AI, with hopes to harness AR in the future to create interactive clothing.

Many of these also took part in the Open Mic sessions, reminiscent of the BBC’s Dragons’ Den, where entrepreneurs had the opportunity to pitch their businesses and ideas before facing questions from the judges and audience.

In the evening, the collaboration zone was the scene of the battle of the pitches, in which five entrepreneurs went head-to-head trying to win the £10,000 prize put up by headline sponsor Catax.

Introducing the Battle of the Pitches, Paul Foley, Director of Catax Group, said they wanted to add “another layer of opportunity’ to this year’s event, after being impressed by the innovation on display in previous years.

This was then followed by the VFS22 awards, which celebrated some of the best exhibitors from the day.

The #VFS22 Awards

Brand Conscience Ltd picked up first place in the Sustainable Innovation category for their colour-coded sustainability scoring system which measures five key areas for sustainability and ethics at a production level, namely Production Processes, Longevity, Recyclability & Circularity, Manufacturing Miles and Company Kindness.

The Early Stage Innovation award was won by Journally, a psychology-backed journalling app which aims to help improve the quality of your healthcare by facilitating communication with clinicians through its tracking and summarisation features.

A special mention was also made for API Team, which Founder Harry Twigg described as like Google Docs but for coding, as it allows programmers to work collaboratively on software development in real time. API Team was offered a Gold Membership by the University of Southampton Science Park, which was also exhibiting at the event, to help them continue to develop their platform.

This type of organic collaboration was a feature of the day. The open mic session showed everyone the value of these events when the team from Brand Conscience came into contact with Stitch.LDN, offering them guidance in making sure their clothing is produced sustainably.

Southampton-based Labl.It won the prestigious Innovator of the Year Award for their handheld kitchen labelling device. Aiming to replace the industry-standard paper labels, their device offers to make stock control in the hospitality industry quicker, more sustainable, and safer.

The next award given out was for the Open Mic contest, which was won by Charlie Gray and Ben O’Nion for One Hive, which they described as “Tinder for Jobseekers”. The two A-Level students were unfortunately too young to claim their prize of Venturefest-branded wine.

Speaking to The Business Magazine, Charlie and Ben said it still had not fully hit them that they had won. Ben said: “It’s been a great day, we’ll be back again next year”.

We also met Mitch Wisniewski, who came second in last year’s Open Mic contest with his company Other Skies, a 3D Web Studio bringing trade show interactivity to online sales.

Mitch explained competing last year was “a brilliant world of practice. We managed to get a lot of confidence from it and belief in our own credibility. Going on from that we then went on to win both Hampshire Startup of the Year 2022 from the Chambers of Commerce, and a £10,000 funding pitch to Theo Paphatis through Solent University’s Dragons’ Den

“It was exactly the practice we needed to stop acting like scared kids and start acting like businesspeople and it paid off.

“We also did business with [Carswell Gould] after, in the form of a 3D visualisation job for one of their clients. They liked the pitch and decided to do business with us.”

The final award of the night, for the Battle of the Pitches, was won by Gil Satchell for powerQuad. The company’s equipment stores low-cost energy from the grid and the customer’s own renewable energy sources, which they can use how and when they want, all controlled through a mobile app.

Gil said: "I'm thrilled that our innovative powerQuad technology has won this fantastic prize from CATAX at the brilliant #VFS22.  

“powerQuad is a smart green battery alternative to diesel fuelled generators, which provides cheaper renewable energy and helps reduce CO2 emissions significantly.  

"We will invest the prize funding to help not only our business to grow, but to support the community and our eco-system."  

While PowerQuad won the main prize, Catax, who have helped businesses recover half a billion pounds in lost tax, also offered their support to all five of the pitches if they would like it.

Paul Foley, Director at innovation funding specialist Catax, which specialises in R&D tax credit claims for businesses of all sizes, said: “It was a tough fought battle but we were thrilled to award the £10k prize to Gil and his team. Helping business uncover hidden finances is what we do every day and it was a pleasure to be involved again at VFS.” 

Ed Gould from Carswell Gould discusses Venturefest South and its place in the southern innovation ecosystem

We managed to catch up with Ed Gould, #VFS22 Event Organiser and Creative Director at Carswell Gould, who spoke about the planning which goes into Venturefest and its place in the Southern innovation ecosystem.

Ed explained: “Venturefest South is a year long programme, not just this event. There are a range of partners which come together and fund it, then we meet every quarter to promote all of those organisations, including the activity at the universities, before coming together for this.

“The hardest part is always making people realise the value and getting them to invest their time and effort. But once you’re here you can see what it’s about. There’s loads of energy and good things happening.

“All of the people here are here for free. All of the students and innovators have been given free stands. We’re not only not-for-profit, but we’re actually putting any money we raise directly back into the local economy.

“We want people in this region and further afield to know that the South is a brilliant place to turn a good idea into a great business – that there are the organisations, people and programmes who can help them do that.

“For example, if some of our student innovators meet someone who takes their business, that turns into something. Way back in 2017 when we started, one of our pitchers, Connor, who had an idea for how to calculate how holes in the road damage lorries and buses, got bought by an American company and ended up in Silicon Valley.

“Either it’s going to create investment in one of the businesses, a new partnership between people, or a new connection that leads to something.

“Some of the people who are pitching a specific idea, the truth is they won’t go anywhere and, perhaps, nor will the idea of the person sat next to them, but maybe they’ll get together and create the next thing.

“Entrepreneurship and innovation is not a static thing. Most of the people who are really entrepreneurs or innovators will get bored and move onto the next thing because what they’re most interested in is creating something new and solving a new problem.

“So, you would expect the connections some of the people make here to be of value to them today, tomorrow and maybe in ten years’ time.

“We’re at a time when there’s a lot of economic uncertainty – everyone’s fairly sure that everyone’s going to get hammered. We’re going to need these small businesses to get us out of this muddle, and positive investment, spending into businesses that can then create jobs and pay more money, is a big part of it.

“In the last recession, we doubled down and worked twice as hard and that got people out of it quicker.

“Venturefest South has survived Brexit, we survived the Beast from the East [anticyclone Hartmut, which brought a wave of could weather to the Britain in 2018], now we’re looking at one of the toughest budgets in many people’s memory.

“The question is how organisations can come together to fund and support things like Venturefest South in order to help businesses? The risk is that individual organisations will start putting their head down, and that will just create a bigger problem.”

Alongside Catax, the event was made possible by the support of headline partners BAE Systems and Dstl, as well as all the other sponsors, partners and exhibitors, a full list of which can be found here.

Reactions to the event

Earlier in the day, we spoke to Nathan Robinson, Regional Development Director at headline partner Catax Group, who said: “It’s lovely to be here. There’s lot of friendly faces, a good atmosphere and great speakers. I’ve met some very interesting people.

“I’ve just come from an open mic session, and what struck me was the scale and variance of the ideas and innovation on display.

“Innovation always finds a way. When you get like-minded people together, you actually realise that the world you’ve been living in, or the world you see yourself going into with a tough economic backdrop, sometimes isn’t as bad as you think, and there’s a new way of approaching something you might learn for free.”

Headline partner Dstl’s Head of Platform Systems Matt Chinn added: “There was really positive energy at the event and we had great feedback from everyone we met. It was a really uplifting and productive day making new connections. Collaboration is central to what Dstl does, so this event, which brings together businesses from all sectors to work in partnership, is very important to us.” 

Tony Mrozicki, Head of Innovation Labs at BAE Systems, a #VFS22 Headline Partner, said: “Venturefest South provides BAE Systems with a valuable interface to openly engage with SMEs in the local area.

“We are increasingly looking to partner with local SMEs to provide support in moving from concept to commercialisation.”

Jayne Sime, Senior Enterprise and Skills Executive at the Solent Local Enterprise Partnership, said: "It has been a great day! As a long-running, founding partner of Venturefest South, we are keen to ensure that as many businesses as possible are aware of the free advice and support that the Solent Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has to offer.

"We have a long and established history of offering all types of businesses support, like the series of webinars we are running in partnership, to help businesses during these financially challenging times. Taking part in the funding, finance and opportunities in the Venturefest Talk today was a key illustration of the type of signposting we offer."

#VFS22 Board member Sarah Duckering, Director of Research and Innovation Services at University of Portsmouth, said: “It is fantastic to see so much innovation happening in the region and that all the innovators are passionate about what they do. 

“VFS22 is really instrumental in supporting the burgeoning local innovation and supports the region’s future prosperity, which is so important during this current economic climate.” 

Leader of Southampton City Council Satvir Kaur said: "Southampton is a hub of innovation – forward-facing and future-ready.  

“It’s important that we grasp future growth areas and take advantage of opportunities they can bring for our city and region, which makes events like these so important, that enable this to happen. 

“The council is supporting LoCase (Low Carbon Across the South and East) programme, which is offering up to £10,000 in grant funding, alongside promoting our new Business Hub which offers free resources and support to SMEs at this year's VFS."  

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Featured image: Celebrating #VFS22 at the Ageas Bowl, from left, Tony Mrozicki, Head of Innovation Labs at BAE Systems; Ed Gould, #VFS22 event organiser and Creative Director at Carswell Gould; Diana Galpin, Director of Enterprise & Knowledge Exchange at the University of Southampton; Dstl’s Head of Platform Systems Matt Chinn and CEO of Maverick Aviation, Antony Quinn.