• We will continue to build on ways to support our students and staff in establishing startups, including convening external mentors and experts, and building our investor network to help startups flourish.
• We will create stronger connections between all parts of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, providing better support for staff, students and external collaborators.
• We will equip our students and staff with the knowledge and skills needed to turn their ideas into reality.

Entrepreneurship facilities

Imperial has invested in creating a vibrant entrepreneurship support ecosystem, supporting from the very earliest stages of conceptualizing business ideas through to helping established startups to grow.

Imperial College Advanced Hackspace (ICAH) is a highly accessible environment for inventors, hackers and makers from around the College – student or staff – to turn their ideas into real breakthrough prototypes and solutions. ICAH provides access to specialist manufacturing equipment, training, and a network of like-minded members. There are hackspaces across South Kensington Campus, and the bespoke workshop at The Invention Rooms in White City contains a well-equipped bio lab, alongside state-of-the-art 3D printing, electronics, metalwork and woodwork equipment.

Imperial Enterprise Lab is a hub for student entrepreneurship, offering workspace, advice and mentoring. It’s home to the College’s flagship student entrepreneurship programmes, such as WE Innovate, which is dedicated to helping female entrepreneurs succeed, and the Venture Catalyst Challenge, which sees hundreds of student teams apply to undertake seven intensive weeks of masterclasses and coaching. In 2018/2019, the Lab engaged 1,974 students in its activities.

Imperial’s highly utilised White City Incubator provides state-of-the-art laboratories and office spaces, and an incubation programme of training and events to help startup companies. Companies include Polymateria, which is developing a breakthrough, proprietary formulation for biodegradable and compostable plastics. Incubator graduate Mina Therapeutics is developing a pioneering platform enabling the development of new medicines that restore normal function to patients’ cells and received £35m in investment from Sosei, a Japanese biotech company. Water purification biomaterials company Puraffinity provides an example of the journeys Imperial aims to support. The company idea was formed in 2014 when founding team entered the iGEM synthetic biology competition run by Imperial-based SynbiCITE. Founder Gabi Santosa won the WE Innovate female entrepreneurship programme in 2016, this was followed by further funding from SynbiCITE and the company went on to take up a shared lab in the incubator, from there the company won £1.2m in EU Horizon 2020 funding that allowed them to take their own lab in the incubator. The company raised $3.55m in a seed funding round in 2019.

Scale Space, located within Imperial College’s White City Campus, is a new innovation space, bringing together research, talent and business-building expertise from Imperial College London and the UK’s leading digital venture builder, Blenheim Chalcot. It will provide unique access to an ecosystem designed to encourage and support innovation and growth to businesses focused on scaling.