12 pitches, 4 judges and £15,000 up for grabs to help turn an idea into a business!
Our annual Venture Competition here at Brunel University of London offers students and alumni the opportunity to develop their entrepreneurial skills and hone their ideas while competing for a share of £15,000 in start-up funding, generously supported by Santander Universities and the Brunel Development Fund.
Each year we look for outstanding budding entrepreneurs to come forward with bright ideas, from commercial or social issues to those that explore gaps in the market. During this year’s competition, we received a wide range of great ideas including those addressing sustainability, environment, healthcare and food innovation.
To kick off the competition, we received a total of 49 video entries from students and recent graduates across the university, pitching their innovative business idea to us in just 2-minutes, in hopes of becoming our Venture Competition 2025 Winner. We shortlisted 27 applicants from these video entries to go through to stage 2, where each applicant submitted a Business Model Canvas online application.
Throughout the competition, we provide workshops and tailored support to help each applicant prepare, including Business Model Canvas workshops hosted by Erica Purvis (founder of Technical Nature) and Perfect Your Pitch workshops, hosted by Andrew Mossop our pitch expert (founder of The Training Ground) in the run-up to the finals.
From stage 2, 12 fantastic finalists then pitched their business ideas live to our panel of expert judges at the finals on Thursday 27 March, competing to win a share of the prize fund in order to take their idea to the next level.
Meet the Judges
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External
After a 5-minute pitch from each of our budding entrepreneurs followed by a 5-minute Q&A with the judging panel, 5 winners were selected to win a share of the prize fund.
Meet our 2025 winners...
Jonathan Fisher
UG Product Design (BSc) Graduate
2023 graduate Jonathan won £5,000 at this year’s finals with his business idea Peter, a wearable biomedical device that helps people with Parkinson’s Disease regain their ability to walk during symptom flare-ups.
Jonathan Fisher with Emmy Botterman
Lauren Harrison
PG Psychology (MSc) Graduate
2023 graduate Lauren won £3,000 at this year’s finals with her business idea The Bellatrix Project, which supports female survivors of intra-familial childhood sexual abuse throughout their healing journey.
Lauren Harrison with Ayo Abbas
Louis DeCleyn
UG Industrial Design and Technology (BA) Graduate
Recent 2024 graduate Louis won £3,000 to develop his business idea Sine Health, a wearable device that optimises resilience to stress and trauma by dynamically guiding users’ breathing through discreet vibrations, enhancing wellbeing for high-stress professions like emergency services.
Louis DeCleyn with Anil Puri
Donya Mansouri
UG Medicine (MBBS) Student
Current student Donya won £2,000 to continue developing her business idea Tilapia Face Mask (TFM), an innovative, biocompatible burn treatment using tilapia-infused face sheets to accelerate healing, reduce scarring, and minimise pain—providing a cost-effective, sustainable alternative to traditional burn care solutions.
Donya Mansouri with Andrew Mossop
Jonny Parker
UG Product Design Engineering (BSc)
Current final year student Jonny won £2,000 to develop his business idea BrailleForge, a 3D braille printer empowering teachers to produce bespoke learning materials to help teach visually impaired students graphical STEM concepts through the use of braille and tactile graphics.
Jonny Parker with Priscilla Vivian
Meet our other outstanding finalists…
In addition to the prize fund, all finalists have been invited to our online summer start-up incubator programme, where they will receive invaluable feedback and guidance from our extensive range of specialist mentors to further explore their ideas in order to take them to the next level.