During the last 6 weeks, SETsquared companies in the incubation centre based on The University of Southampton Science Park have been awarded over £425,000 of funding from a range of sources, a record amount for any SETsquared incubation centre1. This funding will create huge opportunities for these companies, based on Southampton Science Park, and help ensure their growth in the near future.
The largest amount was awarded to nquiring minds, a research lab specialising in high technology research, who received two grants from the Technology Strategy Board, the UK’s innovation agency, amounting to a total of £155,000.
Nick Allott from nquiring minds said “The funding we have received from the Technology Strategy Board has transformed our business from a consultancy to a product business. Using these grants we have developed our UbiApps (www.ubiapps.com) product range which helps Enterprises manage cloud and web-based applications across PCs, Mobiles, Tablets, Automotive and Internet of Things Devices.”
The Technology Strategy Board has also awarded two other firms, Parabola Research and Xylostream Technology £100,000 each, under their competitive SMART awards process. Both will use the funding to create original Intellectual Property and prove the concept of what they are doing. In time this will lead to jobs and more rapid business growth.
Southampton Science Park based SETsquared has also won £65,000 from the Intellectual Property Office’s Fast Forward 2013 competition. The award will be used to run a 1 year programme including bespoke “one to many” forums for large corporate companies or public sector organisations that are interested in creating open innovation relationships with SME ‘growth companies’.
Alan Scrase, Manager of the SETsquared Incubation Centre at the University of Southampton thinks that “This initiative will facilitate open innovation in the widest sense. The Prime will see what exciting things the SETsquared network’s firms have to offer, both as suppliers but also as possible exploiters of the technology the Primes may have sitting on their shelves.”
Two companies in the centre have also received travel grants, amounting to £3,500 from SETsquared to facilitate travel to the USA, to investigate opportunities to expand into the American market place. One of these also won an £5,000 ERDF innovation voucher to produce a demonstration prototype which they showed to a major US based partner with great success.
David Bream, SETsquared Director at the University of Southampton said, “Alan Scrase, has done a phenomenal job supporting the SETsquared companies in acquiring these most recent grants, guiding them through the entire process from choosing which grants to apply for, to finalising their applications. Without his detailed understanding of the various grant schemes available and committed support of the SETsquared companies it is unlikely that so much funding would have been secured.”
Peter Birkett, CEO of Southampton Science Park said, “Southampton Science Park is dedicated to supporting enterprising companies. Having such innovative and high achieving companies based here on the Science Park shows the great talent based in the South of England. Enterprise is the lifeblood of the economy, and without the support of SETsquared on the Park, small, high-tech startup companies would not have the capacity to win these grants.”
