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Aug 18, 2010 at 12:25:48 PM by Simon Joyce - Tags: - Comments (0)

World Cup Prediction Competition Winner Announced

Aug 3, 2010 at 2:08:42 PM by Simon Joyce - Tags: - Comments (0) - Centre: Culham

Culham Innovation Centre company - Afrikanet - announced the winner of their World Cup prediction competition at a celebratory dinner held in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

The Winner, Mike Mallet, walked away with a brand new laptop -  provided by Afrikanet - which was followed by a 3 course meal for staff and sponsors.

The full evenings events can be found by clicking here

Pioneering Harwell-based company wins prestigious innovation award at the

Jul 21, 2010 at 8:40:29 AM by Simon Joyce - Tags: - Comments (0)

For 16 years, the Oxfordshire Business Awards have been recognising, rewarding and promoting the excellence of Oxfordshire-based companies.   Oxford Innovation is proud to once again be the sponsor of the very successful and popular Awards Dinner which took place on the evening of Friday 18 June 2010.  Paul Lowe, Chairman of the Awards Committee said "I am delighted to welcome Oxford Innovation back into the fold as one of the sponsors of the Oxfordshire Business Awards.  Oxford Innovation were, for many years, a sponsor of the Awards and it is great to have them back on board."

The Awards Dinner was held at the Four Pillars Hotel, Sandford on Thames, Oxford, and was attended by 450 people.  Finalists from companies across many sectors of business in Oxfordshire, enjoyed the dinner with many of Oxfordshire’s entrepreneurs and business leaders.

This year the Oxfordshire Business Awards Sponsors Committee has announced the creation of a new Sponsors Award.  The category will be known as the Oxfordshire Business Awards’ Lifetime Achievement Award, which will be presented to the individual(s) judged to have made an outstanding contribution to the county’s business scene. 

The 2010 winner of this special award was Sir Martin and Lady Audrey Wood, co-founders of Oxford Instruments.  Based on Sir Martin Wood’s invention of the world’s first superconducting magnet, Oxford Instruments was built and developed into a world-wide, high technology company.  Sir Martin and Lady Audrey have maintained their belief in innovation as key in driving growth and success in business, and have continually encouraged and supported new, science based companies to be successful through innovation.  Sir Martin and Lady Audrey Wood were the founders of Oxford Innovation, in 1995, who continue to build on their aim of building successful Oxfordshire businesses through innovation.
 
Oxford Innovation would like to congratulate a thoroughly deserving Sir Martin and Lady Audrey Wood for winning such a prestigious award.

Oxford Innovation would also like to congratulate another award winner, Bunnyfoot Ltd, who were announced as winners of the Oxford Brookes University and Business School Innovation Award.  Bunnyfoot are based at the Harwell Innovation Centre, on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus.

Bunnyfoot  are usability specialists, founded in 1999, in the early days of usability, and were the first consultancy to offer professional accessibility services and the first to offer eyetracking as standard. They now also offer specialist eyetracking services to ad agencies and for market research. 

Bunnyfoot are continually developing their offering using state of the art technologies and pioneering innovations to develop their services for their clients.  It is this drive for applying innovative but applicable approaches to their service and products which made them stand out in a very strong field.

The award was presented to Bunnyfoot by Janet Beer, Vice Chancellor of Oxford Brookes Business School.  Director of Bunnyfoot, Dr. Jon Dodd, said of receiving the award “we are absolutely delighted to receive this Innovation award in recognition of advances we have made in usability and eyetracking testing.

Innovation is about trying something new, sometimes with uncertain outcomes, often with a degree of risk  – Oxford Innovation and the Harwell Innovation Centre has helped us control the risk (and anxiety!) of expansion as we have developed our business in new areas by providing flexible accommodation that has grown (and thankfully only once shrunk) with us. Without centres like this we may have never taken that initial risky step of starting the company in the first place”.

Oxford Investment Network announces Major New Sponsor

Jul 21, 2010 at 8:35:41 AM by Simon Joyce - Tags: - Comments (0)

Oxford Investment Opportunity Network (OION), Europe’s leading technology investment network, has announced the signing of the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus as a major new sponsor on a deal that is intended to boost the links between high growth companies, investors and research organisations in Oxfordshire.

The Harwell Science and Innovation Campus is being developed into one of the world’s leading locations for scientific, academic and business collaboration through a joint venture between global property group Goodman, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and the Science & Technology Facilities Council (one of the UK’s seven research councils). The campus is home to over 100 science and technology companies as well as the Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron science facility.

The sponsorship deal will see the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus provide support for the OION Network, which helps technology companies secure funding from £200,000 to £2 million, and its sister network, Oxford Early Investments (OEI), whose remit is early stage companies requiring proof of concept funding from £25,000 to £250,000.

Eileen Modral, OION and OEI networks manager, announced the sponsorship at a special event for investor members held at the Diamond Light Source facility. The facility currently has 18 cutting edge operational experimental stations supporting the life, physical and environmental sciences.  Diamond is funded by the UK Government via the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and by the Wellcome Trust.

Ms Modral said: “We are delighted to welcome the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus on board as a prestigious new sponsor of both the OION Network and Oxford Early Investments. Their support, alongside our existing sponsors and members, will enable the Networks to maintain a high quality service for both investors and companies.”

Megan Morys, innovation manager for the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, said: “OION and Oxford Early Investments offer a unique and compelling service to early stage and growing companies, many of which are attracted to Harwell Science and Innovation Campus. The combination of sponsors offering access to research, facilities and business support services and investors offering funding and experience provides these businesses with a stable platform for the next phase of their development. We are looking forward to working with the investment networks.”

Tim Bestwick, director of innovation at the Science Technology & Facilities Council, said: “We’re really pleased that the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus is developing this link with OION and Oxford Early Investments. There’s a good fit between the Campus, which supports the commercialisation of cutting edge research and development of spin-out companies and these Networks with their track record in helping technology companies to secure the equity investment that is so vital for their growth.”

The Harwell Science and Innovation Campus joins the existing sponsors of OION and Oxford Early Investments who include: Laytons, Marks & Clerk, Manches, Dehns and Richardsons.

GroupSpaces raises $1.3 million from Oxford investors and Silicon Valley heavyweights

Jul 2, 2010 at 4:18:25 PM by Simon Joyce - Tags: - Comments (0)

GroupSpaces, the go-to site for simple online management and administration of real-world groups founded by Oxford University students, today announced it has secured a $1.3 million investment round from Index Ventures and a leading angel investor consortium including Dave McClure, Chris Sacca, Simon Levene, Meagan Marks, Ariel Poler and Quincy Smith of CODE Advisors. Index Ventures partner, Mike Volpi, will take a board seat.

GroupSpaces was founded by David Langer and Andy Young while they were Oxford University students and secured its initial funding in 2008 through Oxford Early Investments (OEI), a leading business angel network that helps innovative early stage companies to raise funding. Existing investors and members of the OEI Network, Stephen Bullock and Simon and Michael Blakey of Avonmore Developments, also participated in this round.

Since then, GroupSpaces has followed a Facebook-like expansion model and all the student clubs within Oxford University and the Said Business School, Oxford, are now users. The site has also been adopted by most large clubs across the UK’s other top universities and is currently used to manage over 500,000 group memberships.

GroupSpaces provides an all-in-one set of tools designed to meet the needs of groups such as sports clubs, hobby groups, associations and student societies. This integrated offering makes administration of groups more effective, improves member communications and saves group organisers and officers lots of time compared to the common patterns of having a Yahoo! Group for mailing list, member records in Excel and collecting payments through various offline means.

GroupSpaces differentiates itself by only requiring group leaders to sign up, making it fast to adopt and get started for secretaries, treasurers and other officers of existing real-world groups. Group members can be imported from Excel and then receive emails, register for events and pay their membership dues, all without having to create a user account and password.

GroupSpaces is free for groups with less than 250 members and for student groups of any size. Above 250 members, pricing starts at £5 per month. The company generates revenue via a combination of premium accounts, targeted advertising and transaction commissions for payments made through the site.

GroupSpaces founder, David Langer, said “We’re delighted we were able to attract such high profile investors to this funding round and we look forward to leveraging their expertise in helping us to move forward with our growth strategy and expansion into new geographies, attracting top talent to our team and rapidly rolling out our product roadmap.”

Eileen Modral, investment manager at Oxford Early Investments, said: “We congratulate David and the rest of the GroupSpaces team on securing this major investment. We were pleased to assist the company to raise crucial funding in 2008 to progress the initial development of their innovative software. Since then, GroupSpaces has made phenomenal progress and is poised for further success.”

Mike Volpi, board member and partner at Index Ventures, said: “GroupSpaces is a terrific start to the Index Seed Fund. We are very impressed with this entrepreneurial team and see great potential for GroupSpaces as a one-stop-shop for groups worldwide.”

To watch a video about GroupSpaces please click here

 Andy Young (left) and David Langer (right), Founders of GroupSpaces