On Wednesday 12 March 2025, Brunel University of London travelled once again around London visiting the best workplaces and innovation hubs that the city has to offer. We heard from inspiring entrepreneurs and discovered London’s entrepreneurial ecosystem all in one day!
In collaboration with 13 other London universities, we took 18 Brunel students on a unique walking route around London, providing an unmissable opportunity to connect to real-world businesses, be inspired by the UK’s vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem, and gain networking skills whilst developing other core transferable entrepreneurial skills.
The 11-hour event included a packed programme of tours, live demos, visits and talks at some of London's most innovative hotspots.
Our crawl began at Santander Work Cafe, where students networked over breakfast before being shown around the co-working space and hearing from Remy Foucher, Santander Education & Social Impact Relationship Director, about all things entrepreneurship at Santander.
Following this, we then travelled by foot to our second stop – Digital Catapult where we were immersed into the world of advanced digital technology. Digital Catapult brings together industry leaders, researchers and startups to accelerate digital technology adoption to benefit the UK – breaking down barriers, de-risking innovation, opening up markets and responsibly shaping the products, services and experiences of the future. After learning more about what they do and hearing all about its impact on UK businesses from Kerwyn Dyte, Immersive Lab Manager- our attendees then got the chance to take part in live demonstrations, trialling the tech for themselves.
We then headed to our next stop of the day - Red Bull UK, where students networked some more and toured the space before hearing from Amelia Bell, Consumer Collecting Specialist who gave us more details about all the ways Red Bull UK supports innovation and entrepreneurship, including their international Red Bull Basement Competition for university students.
Recent Brunel graduate entrepreneur Jonathan Fisher, the founder of Peter then shared all about his entrepreneurial journey to date and as the crowned 2024 Red Bull Basement UK Competition winner and a shortlisted candidate for the 2024 James Dyson Award, his insights and top tips were invaluable to our budding entrepreneurs.
After Red Bull UK, we took a walk over to our final Brunel only stop where we explored Makerversity at Somerset House, a beautiful co-working space for creative individuals or businesses working on physical, digital or even edible products and looking for a home for their idea, startup or business. After hearing more about the Makerveristy, we were joined by current Makerversity member Chloe So, the Co-Founder & CEO of PulpaTronics, who shared all about their groundbreaking sustainability-focused start-up.
Brunel graduate entrepreneur Jeffrey Oyinlola, founder of Pick Up The Mic and Programme Administrator – Black Business Incubator at Somerset House, also joined us to share his incredible entrepreneurial journey with the group.
The London Venture Crawl concluded at Kings College London with a live pitch-off competition between the 13 participating London universities. Over 200 attendees gathered to network, have fun, and support their university's pitching representative.
Brunel graduate entrepreneur Christopher D’Souza had the opportunity to re-share his winning 90-second pitch from last year’s event where he was crowned ‘London Venture Crawl 2024 Pitch-off Champion’ as well as be part of the judging panel at this year’s pitch-off.
Current student Urooj Kamran Azmi, represented Brunel University of London with an excellent 90-second pitch at this year’s pitch-off, sharing her business idea Rise London.
