Support us
Your gift to Imperial Enterprise Lab will enable us to increase the number of game-changing innovations we can nurture into startups.
Amongst Imperial’s diverse and driven community of students, alumni and early-career researchers is an entrepreneurial talent pool to rival anywhere else in the world. Through our best-in-class education programmes and expert business support services, the E-Lab helps founders to translate their ambitious innovations into real world impact. All our services are delivered on a free-of-charge, zero equity basis.
Our Impact
We’re proud to have unlocked huge potential through the E-Lab’s entrepreneurship support:
More than 327 student startups active
£546 million pounds of follow-on funding secured
4514 jobs created
The Opportunity
Let’s build something great together.
The Enterprise Lab combines the strengths and skills base of a global top ten university with the personal relationships of a small team. As a Sponsor, you can take advantage of the profile and networks of a world-leading organisation, whilst also seeing the real difference that your support makes by meeting ventures which are personally benefitting from your involvement.
Taking a strategic approach, we work with funders to identify a sponsorship or donorship package that delivers on your goals. We’ll propose a menu of tailored engagement opportunities that aligns with your interests and intentions.
Partner with Imperial
Since our founding in 1907, Imperial has sought to be not only a world-leading university, but a world-changing one. We have combined our tremendous strength in science, engineering, medicine and business (STEMB) with scientific discovery, innovation and entrepreneurship, to create real-world impact.
Every day our students, staff and partners come together to interrogate the forces that shape the future. We do it so that we can better understand our world. We do it so we can use that understanding to tackle the biggest challenges facing humanity.
The next chapter in Imperial’s story is ambitious. The launch of the new Imperial Strategy in March 2024 has innovation and entrepreneurship at its heart, with plans to expand the support available for our community, and we are looking for partners who share this ambition and vision.
Potential partnership opportunities include:
Fuelling startups by funding our flagship accelerator The Venture Catalyst Challenge
Enabling thousands of students across the world to collaborate on sustainable solutions thanks to the Global Challenge Lab
Supporting the E-Lab’s regular community networking event, Community Collider
Reducing barriers into female entrepreneurship through the WE Innovate programme and expanding the programme nationally. Find out more here.
Reaching your audience demographics by sponsoring our founder and investor email newsletters and online investor platform
Enhancing our office co-working space to create an inspiring entrepreneurial environment
“At Santander, we recognise the crucial role that start-ups, scale-ups and small businesses play in building and strengthening the UK economy.
I have had the great pleasure of working alongside Imperial College London for several years now. The amount of highly talented individuals based there that are bringing about great innovation in an ever-changing world never ceases to amaze me. Imperial startups are meeting evolving customer needs and are at the cutting edge of technological advancements, addressing the challenges we face, contributing to societal change and improving our quality of life.”
Case Studies
“Fourteen million tonnes of plastic enter our oceans each year. We founded Notpla when we discovered the solution lies in our oceans too.” – Notpla Co-Founder & CEO, Pierre Paslier.
Established by Imperial students, Venture Catalyst Challenge alumni Pierre Paslier and Rodrigo Garcia, Notpla has developed a range of materials made from seaweed and plants that provide an alternative to plastic packaging. In contrast to conventional containers with petrol-based coatings that stick around forever, Nopla’s products disappear back into nature without any harmful traces (similar to fruit peel).
Notpla’s products drew public attention during the 2019 London Marathon, where over 36,000 of their edible capsules filled with Lucozade were handed out to runners in a bid to reduce plastic waste. In 2022, the team were awarded £1 million by the Prince of Wales in the prestigious Earthshot Prize.
Now, Notpla works with takeaway company JustEat.com in several countries and has already seen its natural packaging replace plastic in over 3 million instances.
Untap Health detects infections before outbreaks occur through wastewater surveillance. Their solution provides a viral outbreak early warning system to reduce transmission of infectious diseases (like norovirus, flu and Covid-19) within communities.
After competing in WE Innovate in 2022, Untap Health raised £120k of seed funding from undisclosed investors and later £1.37 million of pre-seed funding in a deal led by 7percent Ventures.
Untap Health’s founder and CEO Claire Trant was honoured with the “High Growth Woman Founder of the Year” award in the 2023 UK Business Angels Association Angel Investment Awards. This recognition is a testament to Claire’s exceptional leadership and her instrumental role in driving the success of Untap Health.
Contact us
Partner with us to shape the future.
If you share our commitment to enabling entrepreneurship and driving progress by empowering ambitious ideas, speak to us about how you can support the E-Lab’s work.