Venture Lab team celebrates five years of nurturing innovation

The Venture Lab team are a group of staff dedicated to helping students create new ideas and launch new ventures. With their mission to make the world a better place, 140 startups have emerged in the last five years, with £18 million collectively raised in external funding.

Venture Lab offer various programmes, resources and initiatives to help students and graduates turn their ideas into successful businesses.

Celebrating our extraordinary students and graduates

Our new Student Graduate Enterprise brochure celebrates a small sample of the many success stories nurtured through Venture Lab, demonstrating the impact of everyone involved.

Venture Lab’s support and initiatives have empowered budding entrepreneurs to address global challenges such as climate change, poverty, and sustainability.

In the brochure, you can learn about:

Co-Founders Luke Young and Rory Hornby, who built Alora to solve world hunger by pioneering the sustainable future of food with the world’s first ocean agriculture system.

Founder of The Corporate Law Journal Saffron Gilbert-Kaluba, who created one of the first digital newspapers focused on technological, political, and financial regulatory changes in business.

Co-Founders Beth Holloway and Leo Thomson, a student and graduate collaboration formed to create Local Energy Systems , a startup born out of a shared desire to accelerate decentralised energy development.

Current student and Taka Taka Zero Team Leader Lettie Mantle, an Enactus Durham project based in Mathare, a slum in Nairobi with goals including cleaner communities, empowered youths and food-secure families.

Inspiring the next generation of innovative leaders

Our mission with Venture Lab is fuelled by the generosity and support of our community of alumni, colleagues and partners, who make our work with student and graduate enterprises possible.

In the Student and Graduate Enterprise brochure, you will learn more about some of our supporters, including alumni Jonathan Hazan and Daisy Hill.

The Hazan Venture Lab is our first purpose-built space for entrepreneurship, made possible through a generous £500,000 donation by alumnus Jonathan Hazan.

Daisy Hill’s commitment to supporting Venture Lab includes working directly with entrepreneurs, mentoring, judging startup pitching competitions and chairing networking events.

Learn more about Venture Lab and how we are giving graduates the employability edge.

Explore some of our other Venture Lab Success Stories and our Entrepreneurship Alumni Hub.



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