University of Southampton's Future Worlds startups visit Silicon Valley
The founders of eight tech startups from the University of Southampton’s startup accelerator Future Worlds have returned after launching their startups in Silicon Valley.
The startups were launched in an event in the San Francisco Bay area from 24 June to 1 July, where they were given the opportunity to network with startups around the world along with investors, advisors and accelerators.
Among the influential people attending the event was the founder of a unicorn startup, which is a privately held startup valued at more than $1 billion.
Ben Clark, Director of Future Worlds, said: “The startup founders we took to the San Francisco Bay Area received an overwhelmingly positive response, which reflects their brilliance, drive and vision.
"We came away from the epicentre of the global startup ecosystem with the confidence and boldness that the startups from the University of Southampton have what it takes to stand tall among the best in the world.”
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The Future Worlds startups taken to Silicon Valley were:
Data Revival: A chemically aware AI platform to capture, contextualise and query unstructured chemical information from any source across an organisation.
Inpulse: The world’s first wearable muscle fatigue tracker for elite sports to optimise performance training and injury recovery.
Hortlock: An automated ESG (Environmental, Social Governance) targets tool enabling sustainable finance providers and clients to efficiently determine ESG goals.
Graffinity: A knowledge graph visualisation technology that automates the discovery of meaningful connections across disparate text and data sources.
AMRSS: An AI developed for real-time aerodynamic performance analysis enabling racing teams like F1, Indy, and Nascar to make informed, in-race decisions.
Sentient Sports: Advanced AI modelling that quantifies risk in the decision-making and scouting process for professional sport teams in their player acquisition and sales.
Fourier Audio: An audio software company applying developments in software to live audio events with applications in events around the globe.
ViridiCO2: Carbon dioxide utilisation technology for efficient and sustainable transformation of carbon dioxide into tailored chemical products.
Ben added: “The UK has a deep history of ground breaking innovation, the view from Silicon Valley is that founders from the UK need to be more bold and to back themselves with confidence to drive their ideas into products and services that change the world.”
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Silicon Valley is world-renowned for it startup culture; the Bay Area has already seen around $29 billion of venture capital investment in startups in the first quarter of 2022 – the same as the whole of Europe combined.
Future Worlds works closely with the Department for International Trade in San Francisco in raising the profile of UK science and technology investment opportunities.
Jaclyn Mason, Director of Silicon Valley & Northwest US at the Department for International Trade, commented: “It’s excellent to see Future Worlds at the University of Southampton working with the Department for International Trade in San Francisco to put our university startups and spinouts on a global stage.
“Future Worlds is a brilliant example of enabling the world-leading scientists and engineers in our universities to create tech startups that change the world, which is an important demonstration of the UK’s position as a science and technology superpower.”
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