Successful winners of the inaugural Sci-Tech Daresbury PitchFest competition

We are delighted to announce six campus company winners of the first Sci-Tech Daresbury PitchFest competition. The PitchFest competition was set up in collaboration with Sci-Tech Daresbury’s Gold partners – David Antrobus Marketing, Grant Thornton, Guardian People Management, Marks and Clerk, Michael Page, Slater Heelis and Vista Insurance.

They had very generously provided a range of free support up to a value of £15,000 covering a areas including:

• Marketing strategy development
• Innovation tax incentives and accounting policy review
• HR consultancy support
• IP advice and support
• Recruitment advice and support
• Company secretarial support and legal compliance review
• Insurance due diligence and brokerage support

Carole Howes of Chatty Learning said

“Chatty Learning were really excited to enter the Pitchfest competition. We are at the stage of growth where sales and marketing is key to us getting our Edtech solution known by schools across the UK and internationally and so we were delighted to be awarded support by David Antrobus Marketing”.

David Winlo of Mapscape said

“We entered the PitchFest competition to advance our ground-breaking carbon projections towards a net zero system, transforming them into real commercial value for companies, thereby incentivising tree planting and management.”

Martin Leigh of novel materials start-up Ampode said

“New businesses rarely have the resources to access high level advice, it’s great to get the opportunity to engage with such a dynamic network at Sci-Tech Daresbury”.

Mike Shaw of IP gold partner, Marks & Clerk stated

“The PitchFest competition has been a fantastic way for us to identify those Campus companies that need IP support, allowing us to provide support that will have a real impact on those companies and their future commercial success.”

Mark Thomas of Vista Insurance said

“We were delighted to be involved in this years’ Pitchfest. It was the perfect opportunity for us to forge new relationships with campus companies, showcase our services and begin to provide real value to the companies involved. A definite win-win.”

Sophie Antrobus of David Antrobus Marketing commented,

“It was great fun to be part of PitchFest 2024. We were impressed by all the amazing companies pitching for our Marketing support. In the end, we couldn't choose just one - our vote went to two totally different but equally deserving companies.”

Congratulations to all of the companies, and many thanks to our Gold partners for their support for this fantastic new initiative.

Following the success of the competition, we will be re-running it in early 2025.