10 finalists competed in last night's Pitch Off final for the chance to be crowned this year's winners.
A full house gathered in the Exchange to watch our 10 Idea Factory 2023 competition finalists pitch their innovative solutions to address problems across healthcare, law, food and community.
3-minute pitches were followed by questions from our judging panel, featuring: Dr Anna Rebmann (Lecturer in Social Entrepreneurship, King's Business School), Elif Sancak (VC Scout, Accelerator and Ex-founder), Farhan Lalji (Chief Value Adder at LTV Capital and Tech in Residence at the Entrepreneurship Institute) and Savitri Tan (Investor at Isomer Capital and Investor in Residence at the Entrepreneurship Institute).
Selected from the 10 finalists, the winners are:
| 1st Place (£3,000) | Fitra Health | Founded by Nawal Yousaf (Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine) |
| 1st Runner Up (£2,000) | NanaUp | Founded by Andrea Barsallo Marin (King's Business School) |
| 2nd Runners Up (£1,500) | ARENA | Founded by Yassin Ali (Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy) and Ayani Mohamud |
| LaYas Life | Founded by Nasreen Hasan (Institute of Psychiatry Psychology & Neuroscience) | |
| People's Choice Award (£2,000) | ARENA | Founded by Yassin Ali (Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy) and Ayani Mohamud |
It was great to see the enthusiasm of all the founders who pitched and the diversity of ideas that they are pursuing. All the judges were highly impressed by the quality of the ideas and the pitches. It was also fantastic to see how some of these early-stage founders are already taking action to test the assumptions behind their ideas, build prototypes, interact with customers and assemble great teams around them."– Dr Anna Rebmann, Lecturer in Social Entrepreneurship, King's Business School
Alongside funding to further develop their ideas, all winners will receive a 12-month support package, including mentoring by our Head of Entrepreneurial Skills and experts-in-residence.
The People's Choice Award was open to public vote. For the first time ever, Instagram likes for the finalists' pitch videos counted towards the overall vote total.
Whilst the judge's deliberated their decisions, the audience heard from two previous Idea Factory winners, Gemma Archer, director and founder of Linkovate (Institute of Psychiatry Psychology & Neuroscience) and Shikha Ramjutan, founder of Re.sept (Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine), who each shared updates on their journeys since winning last year.
Idea Factory is the Entrepreneurship Institute's flagship idea generation competition. Each year, we put the call out for the biggest, brightest and best ideas across the university and through a series of workshops, give our contestants the skills they need to make their ideas viable and scalable through entrepreneurial skills.
In preparation for the Pitch Off final, teams were invited to attend workshops to support idea validation and to develop their pitching skills.
If you have a potential idea for a business, you can:
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to be the first to hear about entrepreneurial opportunities like Idea Factory.
- Book an Idea Feedback Session with a member of the Entrepreneurship Institute team to share detail and receive feedback on next steps.
- Join the Women Entrepreneurs Network, a community of King's students, alumni and staff that supports idea and entrepreneurial skills development for founders identifying as female or non-binary.
