Anne Milton has joined the Minister of State for Universities and Science, Jo Johnson MP, to meet some of the South’s most innovative new tech start-up businesses.
A reception was organised by SETsquared, a long-standing partnership between the universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey and recently named the world’s number one university business incubator. At the event, SETsquared announced that its member companies raised over £90 million of investment in 2015 – the highest annual investment figure ever achieved by the partnership.
Among those exhibiting their work was Inova Design Solutions, a start-up based at the University of Surrey, which has created Bodytrak. This is a miniature wearable device that monitors a suite of health and performance indicators and sends accurate data to users in real-time, via a smartphone, smart watch or internet hub.
Anne said: "It was amazing to learn more about the work of SETsquared-incubated businesses and I was particularly interested in the University of Surrey’s own contribution Bodytrak. Surrey has played a significant role with SETsquared, helping start-ups compete and allowing entrepreneurs to bring forward innovative and exciting ideas."
SETsquared is a long-standing partnership between the universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey which specialises in growing high-tech start-ups through its incubation programme and other business acceleration services. SETsquared provides mentoring, access to investors and corporate innovators and a wide range of industry experts through its network and training programmes. SETsquared currently supports some 260 high-growth potential technology companies, all of which are developing businesses based on technology innovation in sectors as diverse as cloud computing, cleantech, medtech, next generation mobile and spacetech.
Its business incubation programme is ranked by the University Business Incubator Index as the best in the world and over the last decade it has helped over 1,000 high-tech start-ups to develop and raise more than a £1 billion of investment. Independent research carried out by Warwick Economics estimates the economic impact of SETsquared member companies to be £3.8 billion over this period, with the creation of 9,000 jobs and that these companies, along with new companies SETsquared will incubate, are set to deliver a further £8.6 billion of impact to the UK economy in the decade ahead.