Did you tap into the support on offer during AccelerComm’s journey?

For us the first stepping stone was to file a patent for our research. We were asking the University to cover the cost, so RIS asked us to present our work and justify its commercial potential. That early contact with RIS meant we received mentoring, and it gave us the motivation to pursue opportunities to develop the impact of the patent.

I accessed Researcher to Innovator support and the Innovation to Commercialisation of University Research (ICURe) programme, led by the University with the SETsquared partnership. We received funding to travel around the world and speak to 100 different companies and individuals who were stakeholders in our area of research. It also provided training which helped us to write a business plan.

We had support on pitching from Future Worlds, which helped us think about how to articulate our technology and business plan in a way that would bring it to life for stakeholders. Future Worlds also introduced us to a mentor who helped us to develop our pitch, and later supported us with negotiations following a successful pitch to Innovate UK for a start-up grant in 2016.

How has the company developed since?

We’ve grown exponentially over the past few years. Initially we had two tranches of £250,000 from IP Group, which invests in university spin-outs. Then in 2018 we raised £2.5m, some from IP Group and some from Bloc Ventures, which focuses on communication technologies. Last autumn, we received a further £5.8m in Series A funding round led by IQ Capital alongside Bloc Ventures and the IP Group.

That has enabled us to grow the team to 35 people, including senior industry engineers, senior academics and graduate researchers, so we have a balance of background and experience.