The New Enterprise Competition
Win funding for your business through the University’s flagship start-up competition. Don’t miss out the chance to get involved in as we celebrate 25 years of enterprise support.
Every year a share of £35,000 funding is awarded to businesses started by entrepreneurial students, staff and alumni. These start-ups cover a broad range of areas from AI podcasts to novel earwax removal devices.
We provide funding for all start-up levels through three stages: New Enterprise: IDEATION, New Enterprise: DEVELOPMENT, and New Enterprise: GROWTH. These allow us to support University of Bristol entrepreneurs from ideation to reality.
Winners join a prestigious group of start-ups and spinouts, and are part of the 25-year tradition of celebrating and rewarding entrepreneurship at the University of Bristol.
The three stages of the New Enterprise Competition
Each section has a resource link with more information about that stage.
- IDEATIONFor the idea generators, explorers and creators; anyone wishing to develop entrepreneurial skills or a budding start-up idea.
- DEVELOPMENTFor all the entrepreneurially minded who want to build up skills and knowhow; for creators who have early-stage businesses with a clear vision.
- GROWTHFor the bold and ambitious and for registered businesses seeking to expand their operation and are ripe for investors.
Email basecamp@bristol.ac.uk if you have questions about:
- enterprise support
- sponsoring our programming
- becoming a mentor
Meet the 2024-25 winner of the New Enterprise Competition - pebbl.
We are thrilled to announce our overall winner, pebbl, winning 8,000 funding, along with £2,000 pro-bono legal support from VWV LLP.
pebbl have created an innovative, automatic cable management device. Pictured are pitch judges of the GROWTH stage: Sam Bell - Senior Partnership Lead at WECA (far left) and Rhod Gibson – CEO at DASI and Bristol alumnus (far right). pebbl co-founders Holly Brown (middle- left) and Arik Shukhman (middle-right), also pictured above, said: “I think that our one feeling is being overwhelmed with joy. This funding and support will provide us with the opportunity to expand right at a critical time in our development. We’re so grateful.”
Meet our other winners:
Cribster, an AI-powered student-exclusive platform helping students find flatmates they are compatible to live with, was founded by Daniel Virin and his brother Asher Virin. Cribster win £5,000 funding, along with £2,000 pro-bono legal support from VWV LLP.
Artificially Ever After are our recipients of the Engineers in Business £3,000 award. Founded by Riku Green and Kieren Sharma, Artificially Ever After is a digital brand aiming to educate and demystify artificial intelligence through podcasts, social media, and live events.
Exekias Games, founded by Sam Rapier and Fin Stanbridge, win £3,000 funding. Exekias Games are creating Classically-inspired educational boardgames. Their first game is Escape From Pompeii.
This year we awarded two memberships to SETsquared Bristol, which is a tech start-up incubator in collaboration with the University of Bristol and Bristol Innovations.
- A 12-month membership was awarded to Fidelis AI, founded by Abanoub Ghobrial. Fidelis AI is a deep tech company developing a revolutionary technology for datasets gathering used in training and testing perception AI systems.
- A 6-month membership was awarded to EarTide, founded by Mukund Srinivasa Raghavan. EarTide is a novel earwax removal device, reducing costs and increasing efficiency.