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King’s Entrepreneurship Lab

@thekingselab

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🏛 Cultivating a community of entrepreneurial minds right in the heart of the University of Cambridge. Hosted in @kings.college – events open to all.

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Applications Officially Open for #SPARK, link in bio to apply 🚀🚀🚀 by @thekingselab

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8 months ago

An absolute pleasure to have Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, joining us at the E-Lab and being in conversation with our very own Gillian Tett on stewardship, strategy, and long-term investing in a standing-room only Keynes Lecture Theatre at King's College, Cambridge.

Drawing on his experience leading one of the worlds largest sovereign wealth funds and managing more than $2.3 trillion, Nicolai discussed responsible ownership, navigating global markets, and the leadership principles that underpin sustainable, long-term value creation.

Great questions from the audience as usual, with the best questions from the audeince getting signed copies of the just published book "Vibe: The Secrets of Strong Connections in a Lonely World" from the bestselling author of "Think Again" Adam Grant.

Great also to see friends from Norges Bank Emily Nathan and Grete Borchgrevink Starheim.

📸 @maxbeam by @thekingselab

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15 hours ago

Join us today at the E-Lab when Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, will be in conversation with our very own Gillian Tett on stewardship, strategy, and long-term investing.

Drawing on his experience leading one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds and managing more than $2.3 trillion, Nicolai will discuss responsible ownership, navigating global markets, and the leadership principles that underpin sustainable, long-term value creation.

All welcome: https://www.kingselab.org/all-events/nicolai-tangen by @thekingselab

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2 days ago

What can 6 weeks of volunteering in Cambridge achieve?

This summer, 25 Cambridge students volunteered full-time with 19 local organisations working to tackle inequality across the city.

The result? Fresh ideas, extra capacity for community partners and valuable learning for everyone involved.

We caught up with six of the organisations and the students who joined them to hear about their experiences 👇

🏘️ Stine from @StJohnsCollege worked with the Cambridge Communities Team @CambridgeshireCountyCouncil, which supports local residents across the city

⚽ @JesusCollegeCam student Sonny joined @CUFCFoundation, which uses the power of football to improve lives and tackle inequality in Cambridge

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Rosalind of @TrinityHallCamb supported @CambridgeAcornProject, which provides therapeutic services for children and families

🔑 @Pembroke1347 student Harry volunteered at ItTakesACityCambridge, a charity working to end homelessness

📈 Rhiana from @NewnhamCollege helped at Greater Cambridge Impact, which invests in organisations that address inequalities across the region

🎨 Jia En of @LucyCavendishCollege worked with @CambridgeCAndI, an arts and wellbeing charity that helps children, young people and communities to thrive

All the students are scholars on the Laidlaw Scholars Leadership & Research Programme, funded by the Laidlaw Foundation via the King's Entrepreneurship Lab.

A huge thank you to all the community partners, students, @TheKingsELab, @Kings.College and the Laidlaw Foundation who came together to make a difference.

Explore how Cambridge students are supporting local organisations to build a more inclusive region through the link in @CambridgeUniversity's bio 🔗

#CambridgeInCommon #CambridgeUniversity #Cambridge A group of students standing together on grass. The text above them reads, "What can 6 weeks of volunteering achieve? Meet some of our Cambridge students helping local organisations tackle inequality across the city." by @thekingselab

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3 days ago

SUPER EXCITED that the Cambridge-based biotech start-up Neela Biotech, part of our E-Lab family and our inaugural #SPARK incubator programme, turning waste into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) has just raised £2.1 million in pre-seed funding to take its technology from the lab to a pilot-scale trial at a biogas plant over the next two years. The investment comes as the aviation industry searches for a way to scale sustainable fuel production beyond today's limited feedstock supply – a challenge sharpened by this year’s spike in global jet fuel prices. 🥳 🚀 🥳

Deepanshu Singh, CEO of Neela Biotech, added: “Most SAF today is made from waste oils and fats through HEFA. But the world burns 300 million tons of jet fuel every year, and there is simply nowhere near enough waste oil and fat to meet this demand. When Friederike (Rike) Nintzel and I founded Neela Biotech, we set out to make HEFA-SAF cheaper and scalable. Our Controlled Microbial Upcycling process leverages recent advances in AI-driven synthetic biology to convert diverse waste streams like food and agriculture waste into HEFA-compatible feedstocks. By integrating our technology with existing biogas plants, we can reduce capital requirements, accelerate deployment, and enable distributed, local production. The £2.1 million funding round, led by Elbow Beach, will help us scale towards our pilot and move us closer to making locally produced SAF cost competitive with fossil fuel.”

About Neela Biotech
Neela Biotech is redefining how the world produces fuels and chemicals. Using a proprietary Controlled Microbial Upcycling process that leverages advances in AI-driven synthetic biology, Neela Biotech converts diverse waste streams into sustainable fuels and chemicals with the potential to reach cost parity with fossil-derived alternatives. Its technology can be deployed in existing biogas plants unlocking 5x higher revenues. The Company’s initial focus is Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), where its platform chemicals can replace scarce waste oils used in existing HEFA refineries. Neela is part of the IAG innovation program and has secured grant funding from Innovate UK and the Henry Royce Institute. by @thekingselab

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5 days ago

Happy start to the new academic year at University of Cambridge!! 🥳 🥳

Join us for the Freshers' Fair on Parker's Piece today and tomorrow (6th & 7th Oct) 10.00-16.00 for a chance to win some AWESOME E-Lab Prizes including lots of our new merchandise.

At the Cambridge Freshers' Fair you can also discover another 300+ local and national organisations as well as clubs and societies.

If you can't make it to the Freshers' Fair we hope you will join the E-Lab team for our first event of the academic year this Thursday at 17.00 at King's College, Cambridge: https://lnkd.in/efCiTtm4! We're holding an evening open house to celebrate everything the E-Lab does, bringing every corner of our community into one place, from research and leadership to education and venture-building. See you then!

📸 Hanniya Kamran by @thekingselab

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11 days ago

This year, our Annual Dinner carries a little extra meaning: 2026 marks five years of the E-Lab. 🥳 🚀 🥳 Since launching in September 2021, the E-Lab has grown from a bold idea into a thriving community of entrepreneurial minds at the heart of #Cambridge, and what better way than to celebrate that than by bringing everyone who has shaped it together in one room.

Over the past five years, the E-Lab has become a pioneer in entrepreneurship and innovation across the University, with work spanning four pillars: education, research, incubation, and community. Our Thursday Speaker Series has welcomed remarkable guests, from Geoffrey Hinton to will.i.am, for open and thoughtful conversations about the ideas shaping our world. The residential programmes equip students from all backgrounds with the skills and confidence to turn ambition into action, while the #SPARK incubator helps university-born ventures grow toward real-world impact. Beyond this, our Hackathons, Essay Competition, and #Mindsets blog reach thousands of students each year, many of whom never saw entrepreneurship as a path open to them. Together, these programmes help shape an inclusive community that students carry with them long after they leave King's.

The evening of the 30th of September was our chance to thank everyone who makes this possible. We come together to celebrate our alumni and benefactors, our Senior Advisory Board members and Entrepreneurship Prize judges, our former and current King's Entrepreneurship Prize winners, and the many contributors to our Residential Programme and speaker series. We are just as grateful to our Visiting Entrepreneurs, our Research and Senior Associates, and our Fellows, and that is only to name a few.

Five years in, this dinner celebrates all they have made possible, and looks ahead to everything still to come.

We are grateful to our friends at Trinity College Cambridge for hosting us, especially Catherine Barnard, Richard Turnill, Alice La Trobe Weston, and Sian Gardner. We look forward to continuing and growing our collaboration with Trinity.

Huge thanks to the E-Lab family for making the E-Lab a reality!

📸 @maxbeam by @thekingselab

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15 days ago

DELIGHTED that Zenithon AI, an AI start-up that emerged from our inaugural @thekingselab #SPARK incubator programme, has raised $10 million as it develops new AI models designed to dramatically accelerate some of the world’s hardest physics and engineering problems. 🥳 🚀 🥳

Zenithon is building world models for extreme physics: physics-grounded machine learning models that make simulation for fusion, aerospace and semiconductor development dramatically faster. Its technology is designed to enable engineers to search a million design points in the time it would traditionally take to run a single conventional simulation, potentially accelerating the development of technologies including fusion reactors, rockets and semiconductor fabs. The company has secured investment from BACKED, Lunar, Seraphim, MMC and SOSV, alongside founders and hyperscaler directors.

Alex Higginbottom, Founder and CEO of Zenithon, joined #SPARK as a solo founder during the earliest stages of the company, using the programme to help navigate the transition from technical idea to building an ambitious commercial venture.

He commented, "I joined SPARK right at the start of Zenithon, when I was still a solo founder. There are a thousand things to learn as a founder, and through SPARK I found camaraderie with others on similar journeys, as well as invaluable help mapping out the unknown unknowns. That combination really kickstarted our development and made me a better founder."

SPARK was created to help University of Cambridge students, researchers and alumni and Anglia Ruskin University students and researchers turn ambitious ideas and early-stage technologies into investment-ready ventures. The intensive five-week long residential programme combines hands-on support with access to entrepreneurs, investors and commercialisation experts, alongside the wider E-Lab and Cambridge innovation networks. by @thekingselab

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17 days ago

It's Day One of our 2026 E-Lab Residential Programme, and after a short welcome by the wonderful Sophie Harbour and yours truly, explaining a bit about the E-Lab and our mission "to challenge the status quo and reimagine the world", we started off our sessions for the week with our very own Billy Boyle (CEO of Owlstone Medical) on "What is #Entrepreneurship & Why Should YOU Start a Company" in a packed Keynes Lecture Theatre at King's College, Cambridge.

This cross-college initiative, encouraged by our generous funders including David Sainsbury (KC 1959) and the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, aims to increase our impact across collegiate University of Cambridge and enhance our students' future.

We are also extremely grateful to our friends at EFG Private Banking for their continued and generous support for the September residential programme. A leading Swiss private banking and asset management firm, EFG is renowned for its unique client approach and its mission to bring #entrepreneurial thinking to the industry.

Want to find out more about our year-long programme, see: https://www.kingselab.org/one-year-programme or get in touch with the wonderful Sophie Harbour and Hanniya Kamran. by @thekingselab

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19 days ago

Wonderful to see so many of our new E-Lab members in King's College Hall this evening (with the iconic E-Lab tote bags, do you spot them?)!

This year 90 participants from 19 University of Cambridge Colleges make up the sixth cohort of our year-long programme at the E-Lab. Spanning PhDs, MPhils and undergraduates from departments right across the University, the cohort comes together for a lively mix of spotlight talks, hands-on workshops, pitch training and socials, all designed to sharpen entrepreneurial thinking and build lasting connections.

Across the year, participants explore and develop their own ideas, both individually and in teams, gaining a real feel for what the earliest stages of building a venture involve. Dynamic talks, interactive seminars and collaborative sessions give students the tools, confidence and community to turn a spark of an idea into something tangible.

We are extremely grateful to our friends at EFG Private Banking for their continued and generous support for the September residential programme. A leading Swiss private banking and asset management firm, EFG is renowned for its unique client approach and its mission to bring #entrepreneurial thinking to the industry.

Want to find out more about our year-long programme, see: https://www.kingselab.org/one-year-programme or get in touch with the wonderful Sophie Harbour and Hanniya Kamran. by @thekingselab

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19 days ago

At the E-Lab we are delighted to be partnering with EFG Private Banking, our collaboration has not only enabled us to roll out the E-Lab September/October residential programme for the wider collegiate University of Cambridge, but it also supports a number of postgraduate students at King's College with scholarships (#EFGScholars), making a huge impact! 🙏🏾 🙏🏾

In 2025/2026, EFG funded scholarships for a group of talented King’s postgraduate students to give them the opportunity to develop their skills as innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders in order to thrive in a changing business world. In this #Mindsets (originally published as a part of EFG’s InTalks Magazine), read from these six #EFGScholars and #ELab members:

🎯 Davina Patel, COO of Kids for Kids, an NGO transforming children’s lives in Darfur

🎯 Christopher Reiners, Founder of Stealth, Co-Founder and CEO of Lern-Fair

🎯 Amir Keshavarzzadeh, PhD Researcher at Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge and Centre for Space, Earth and Energy (CSEE)

🎯 Adebukola Imoyo, Independent Consultant focusing on transformation, strategy, change management and talent

🎯 Phil Clements, CEO of Finspector, a fintech start-up focused on transforming financial promotions processes using AI

🎯 Andy Neely, Chairman and Co-Founder of Invest it! – an independent financial literacy non-profit in Germany

as they share their thoughts and aspirations with the EFG team. https://www.kingselab.org/blog/efg-scholars

We look forward to building on this collaboration, to inspire and support more students to come to University of Cambridge, unleash their potential, and ultimately change the world. Stay tuned as we will announce the 2026/27 EFG Scholars very soon! 🥳 🥳

Cambridge Judge Business School | The Cambridge MBA | Executive MBA programmes at Cambridge | CJBS Masters in Entrepreneurship | EFG Capital International Corp. by @thekingselab

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21 days ago

Had a great time showcasing the E-Lab family, our #SPARK incubator programme, and #entrepreneurship at University of Cambridge more generally at the Cambridge #MBA orientation today.

Huge thanks to brilliant Sivaloganathan Kumaran, Natalya Doris, Zina Efchary, Jasper Doeninghaus, Mayank Dalakoti, Hetty Sarinah Samosir, and Christopher Reiners for the amazing pitches, thank you to the amazing Francesca Hodgson and Perses Bilimoria for being in conversation with me and for the insights, and thank you to the wonderful Petra Scalamandré for pulling all of us and the event together.

And big thanks to Juliana Kozak Rogo, Yassar Nasser and the MBA programme team at CJBS for the invitation!

For E-Lab see: kingselab.org

For #SPARK see: sparkatkings.com by @thekingselab

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23 days ago