After the huge success of last year's event, I was so excited to attend the second #startedinoxford Demo Night, celebrating Oxford's startup community.
This year's event was held in the stunning Oxford Town Hall and with 19 startups and 16 partners and sponsors in attendance, the room was absolutely buzzing.
On arrival, guests were given $1,000 of #startedinoxford notes; they then had to go around the room, talk to the various founders and decide which startups they wanted to invest in.
Let me give you the lowdown on a few of my personal favourites:
Tusk
A community platform enabling people to outsource their everyday tasks to university students. Definitely filling a gap in the market!
Oxwash
These guys found laundry at uni to be a bit of a nightmare and came up with a great new service which has now also extended to small businesses; a sustainable laundry service collected and returned to your home, on an Oxwash bicycle!
VeriVin
VeriVin’s goal is to combine the art of physics and the science of wine to help winemakers, wholesalers, retailers, restauranteurs, and collectors demystify wine through their non-invasive wine analyser.
IRmage
I was totally blown over by this technology which designs and develops vision systems by exploiting visible and infrared spectra!
Clipmatic
We've all been in lectures and wished we could somehow incorporate handouts into our notes, rather than shoving them into our bags, to be lost forever. Now there is a solution - Clipmatic provides handy little stationary clips, to allow you to clip handouts into your spiral notebook, along with other tools such as clip-on rulers.
OxyClot
A medical startup developing a quick, non-invasive and accurate point of care diagnosis of DVT for use in GP practices.
Kindness Collective
This social enterprise promotes ethically-sourced natural detergent made from soapnuts, special berries grown by women cooperatives in the Himalayas.
UniCups
I love this idea and can really see it taking off on campuses. UniCups prevents waste by tracking reusable containers to student/staff library account. So you scan your ID card when you buy your coffee and then deposit it in a collector on campus, when you're finished with it.
The winners of the evening were:
🏆FIRST place: OxyClot
🏆🏆SECOND place: VeriVin
🏆🏆🏆THIRD place: IRmage
There were so many more incredible startups featured across the evening and what the event really showcased was the entrepreneurial spirit across Oxford which was oozing from every corner of the room! This innovative hub of Oxford is an exciting place to be, so if you're interested in getting involved, Enterprising Oxford is a great place to start: https://www.eship.ox.ac.uk/