British Design Fund

Fantastic to learn more about how our investee Koalaa soft prosthetics is helping support amputees of all ages in Gaza. The unique design of Koalaa's prosthetics and their ability to be fitted quickly and easily, making them an ideal choice for the project and its aims. Niall Marshall Ewan Phillips #prosthetics #gaza #amputees

Whoooo what a whirlwind 2 years it has been Happy Birthday 🎂 🥳 SamudraOceans In these 2 years we have - closed 2 rounds of funding 🤑 -won 5 grants🫶🏻 - made serious revenue ( honestly in shock!) -deployed in 11 farms -long term contracted with 5 farms - owned 110 hectares of our own seabed in Scotland ( one of the largest?) -trialled multiple farms in Jamaica, Canada and Middle East 🤞 - hired from a team of people who speak about 15 languages and cover 5 religions between them -were nominated for Earthshot Prize, COP challenge and Pierre Cardin - attended Carbon13 13, Plus X Innovation , Greenhouse and AirMiners accelerators - spoke at 3 keynotes , 9 podcasts, 41 events - made a mind blowing traction with #carboncredit buyers with 2 contracts already done for 2030 -invited to UN WIF, Palais de nations as well as COP 🤩 - was covered by BBC, The Times , The Fish Site and many others - was abused for making a few technical errors - received hate mail for advocating #blue #carbon - bullied in public for stating our gigantic ambitions to #scale🌍 - rejected a whopping 57 times by investors ! 😟 - made the best empathetic kindest #board ever seen in my career - brought 8 #women #investors to our captable 4 of them first time investors - nearly died 3x,fell sick multiple times at sea catching very high fever🥺 - took my toddler to 3 global conferences and delegations and taught her how to check for defects in the sonde 🤣🤣🤣 - took my toddler to 5 board meetings, 1 AGM and 16 monthly team meetings - Missed 2 family gatherings, 1 friends funeral ,4 religious festivals and almost my own birthday - Grew 22 tonnes of #seaweed and doubled down this year adding to #carbon capture in the world - Enabled creation of copious quantities of bio stimulant that means the fertilisers from multiple golf courses now are not causing run off because we existed -found #advisors and friends to die for - built a team we are proud of and love and grow with everyday - kissed a few frogs and found amazing partners for growth - learnt that 3mm and 5 mm wetsuits are ... well.. quite different ! - understood cold water #diving needs a separate certification ☠️ - seen that human biases are pretty much ruling the roost esp for those who claim they are 'unbiased' - found out what am truly made of and how am evolving - reversed diabetes and got on near athlete grade #fitness journey ( a bit late in life!) - been on 3 #oceans, 10+ #vessels, and watched multiple gorgeous sunrise and sunsets out in the #sea 🌊 repairing or deploying stuff hanging by a Thread - and seeing... What a beautiful world this is. Thank you for the journey What an honour We are only getting started Oritsebawo Paul Ikpobe Hamish Stewart Patrick Meier, PhD Deepak Shakya Milivoj Vagic Alex Pejacsevich Damon Bonser Kevin Withane (FRSA) Mary McKenna, MBE Carmel Rafaeli Ben Whately Julie Blane Swapan Saha Steven Gray John Burley Alexander Facey Dean Morris Shauna-Gaye Pusey

I’ve just finished Creative Confidence by Tom Kelley and David Kelley, of design firm IDEO and professors at Stanford’s d. school. The book explores how everyone has the potential to be creative, with creativity being a valuable skill in problem-solving and innovation across various fields. One message in particular jumped out to me, along with the pottery anecdote it accompanies. It's about the importance of iteration and practice … not perfection. Something that can often become a barrier for startup founders in the early stages of developing a new product, when they might over plan and over think, rather than getting on and doing. “𝑰𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒎𝒂𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈. 𝑺𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒅𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒚 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒄𝒆𝒔𝒔” #creativity #design #innovation

Huge congratulations to our investee Claire Trant, founder of Untap Health, on winning an award at the prestigious GREAT GBx Gala in San Francisco. https://lnkd.in/evuMkTEW #startup #founder #entrepreneurship

The EIBF’s Champion of Champions Competition recognises top engineering and science innovations from UK universities. Amongst the finalists in this year's competition are: 📃Qualboat has been developed by students from Imperial College London. It uses autonomous boat surveys to measure water quality and AI for intelligent predictions. It is designed to offer a faster, more comprehensive, and cost-effective method for collecting water quality data. 💧FilTerra, developed by students from the University of Bath, is a biochar-based filter that can capture microplastics during the recycling process, preventing contamination of sludge repurposed as fertilizer. Find out more and view all 10 finalists here: https://lnkd.in/ef8JGrEJ #innovation #waterinnovation #startups #entrepreneurship #productdesign Julia Gong Pinho Charlie Campbell Aidan Randall Niyaz Kanayev Royal Academy of Engineering

Ascentys, a digital health startup based in Bradford, is developing immersive technology to help with the treatment of childhood depression. The company has just secured funding from Innovate UK and NIHR (National Institute for Health and Care Research) for its D:ReAMVR technology that aims to address the crisis in children’s mental health services, characterized by increasing referrals, long waiting times, and staff burnout. Early evaluations suggest that the technology is both safe and effective, potentially reducing treatment costs by over 30% within a year. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eeRHx44S Dr. Sayed Kazmi #startup #healthtech #founder

Hull-based agritech startup, Gooddrop Ltd, is pioneering a shift in cotton farming and aiming to address the sustainability issues associated with traditional cotton farming, which is known for its high environmental impact. Gooddrop is partnering with the University of Nottingham for a three-year research project focused on optimising cotton growth in controlled indoor environments. The project will use custom-built cotton research units made from repurposed ex-artic containers. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/e5Jgpv2Y Simon W. Erik Murchie #startup #innovation #agritech #sustainability

In hardware 🔨? In sustainability 🌱? Expanding your network is critical for delivering impact - you’d be bonkers to miss this! 👇 Hard Stuff’s Planet-friendly Hardware networking event is back on the 20th Nov. near Regents Park (at Toast Brewing's tap room, in London) - the BEST sustainability/impact-focussed hardware networking and showcase around! Bring your prototypes (for a free 🍺), bring your team, and bring your questions around launching impactful hardware for our three mega exciting panellists: Damon Bonser from British Design Fund Julian Lee from Binding Solutions Limited and Georgia Ware from Rapid Innovation Group Sponsored by Embedism, this is the eclectic mix of hardware entrepreneurs, investors, and makers that you absolutely DO NOT WANT TO MISS 🚀 Ticket links in the description

Great interview here with Jenny Garbis, British Design Fund Senior Associate. Passionate about innovation for good, Jenny has spent the last 10+ years working in mission-led businesses, venture building in startups and helping them access investment. You can hear what she had to say when she joined Ved Krishna on the Good Garbage Podcast, here: https://lnkd.in/e4hFSfdG #startups #startupfunding #designforgood Damon Bonser Sam Kremer

Fantastic achievement and reach by our investee Calla Ltd and founder Jennifer Bailey!