Sold in 60 seconds: Business School hosts pitching event

Engineers, scientists, designers and students came together for a rapid-fire, micro-pitch event at Imperial College Business School last week.

SW7 180 allows local startups to showcase their latest business ideas to an audience of potential collaborators and supporters. Participants have 60 seconds to pitch their ideas, many of which end with a call for support in areas such as engineering, product design or marketing. The pitches are then followed by a networking drinks reception which allows the participants to mingle and create connections.

The event is masterminded by Imperial’s Create Lab, an innovation community that supports Imperial students to develop their startup schemes.

The event started with a presentation by Lunagen, an energy hardware startup that aims to harness energy from flowing water to generate electricity. Focussing on the UK, where there is a wealth of natural water resources, Lunagen aims to provide a lower cost proposition to energy suppliers and users. The project, masterminded by MBA graduates Lauren Dickerson and Will Penfold, recently secured a £10,000 investment as the winner of the Business School’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Start! Challenge competition.

Lunagen Co-Founder Will Penfold spoke of the challenges of bringing a new product to the market and stressed the vital role of funders, incubators, competitions and grants. He said: “You need to thoroughly understand the market for your product and do research into all the avenues of funding before you start approaching investors.”

His presentation was followed by a series of 60 second pitches by startups from the SW7 community. Some of the ideas pitched included a service for emergency birth certificates for children born in exile who become stateless as a result of not being able to produce a birth certificate or identification documents. Sustainability was another key area, represented by a startup for reducing waste in the fashion industry. Other business ideas included a ‘noise cancellation’ device designed to provide greater privacy for making phone calls in public places. Another notable idea was for a wearable pregnancy belt with sensors that allows expectant mothers to track their babies movements instead of just relying on going to hospital for a scan.

Dr Marco Mongiello, Director of Student Experience at Imperial College Business School said: “The Business School champions entrepreneurship and innovation and the SW7 180 event was an ideal opportunity to showcase the wealth of business talent within Imperial and to connect students and entrepreneurs from the South Kensington community.”