Oxford Seed Fund

A happy new year to founders, funders & friends of the Oxford Seed Fund! 💫 Lots to reflect on from the last year, in which we... ↗️ Invested £1,000,000+ into #founders from the University of Oxford and became the largest student-and-alumni managed fund outside of the US. 🤝 Expanded the fund's global investor, partner and founder network to form a cornerstone for the university's impressive #entrepreneurship scene. 🎓 Supported each other in pursuing careers in #startups and/or #venturecapital post-graduation, and sparked interest within the wider student body. There's so much more to achieve this coming year. Feel free to get in touch with the team if you'd like to connect and learn more about our mission. Here's to a mega 2025! Let's make it a good one 🙌

We are saddened to learn of the passing of David Bonderman, the inspiration behind the Oxford Seed Fund. David set up what was initially the SBS Venture Fund in 2004, and since then, the now-Oxford Seed Fund has created more than 1,200 jobs and seen almost half a billion pounds in additional funds raised globally. Read more about David's successful career: https://lnkd.in/ei4CMAPz Oxford Saïd Entrepreneurship Centre

🌍 Calling all innovators and problem-solvers! 🌍 The Climate Investment Challenge hosted by Imperial College London is back, and it's an incredible opportunity for students passionate about tackling climate issues through financial innovation. 📅 Applications open mid-January and close in March 2024. 💡 What’s at stake? Significant cash prizes (£7,000 to £12,000 last year!) and access to accelerator programs to turn your solutions into reality. 🔗 Join the webinar on December 18th at 1 PM GMT to learn more about the challenge and ask questions. Register here: https://lnkd.in/eFt__sk9 At the Oxford Seed Fund, we champion initiatives like this because they empower student innovators to create meaningful solutions for our planet’s future. 🌱 Special thanks to Imperial College London, Aya Serhal and Maria Zubeldia Diaz for flagging!

🚀 A game-changing milestone in respiratory care! 👩⚕️ We’re thrilled to share that #AlbusHome, developed by our portfolio company Albus Health, has achieved groundbreaking results, as presented today at the British Thoracic Society (BTS) Winter Meeting. 🫁 Albus Home can detect warning signs of asthma attacks up to 5 days in advance – a true shift from reactive treatment to proactive, preventive care. With 98.3% accuracy in respiratory measurements and zero patient burden, this innovation makes continuous monitoring both seamless and impactful. 🤝 This success is the result of Albus Health's incredible collaboration with Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust, Royal Brompton and Harefield hospitals, Imperial College London, Asthma + Lung UK, and Health Innovation Oxford & Thames Valley. 👏 We’re immensely proud to see such groundbreaking innovation shaping the future of healthcare! Congratulations to Mikesh, William, and the entire Albus Health team for leading the way toward a healthier, more predictive future for respiratory care.

👩🔬 The final Conception X Discovery Session for 2024 is happening online on 17th December, 12-1pm. Whether you have an entrepreneurial idea or are simply curious about turning your research into impactful ventures, this is your chance to learn more! 📅 Register here: https://lnkd.in/eEe8PXMd At the Oxford Seed Fund, we are passionate about supporting scientist-founders who transform groundbreaking research into real-world solutions. That’s why we’re thrilled to champion programs like Conception X, which equips PhD students with the tools and resources to explore research commercialization and entrepreneurship. 🎯 Applications for the next cohort close on 2nd February – don’t miss out! Special shoutout to Olivia Ash and the incredible team at Conception X for their dedication to empowering PhD talent.

Another Oxford Seed Fund portfolio startup to celebrate! This week we’re pleased to feature NodeShift, founded by Mihai Mărcuță, MSc alumnus from the University of Oxford, along with his fellow co-founder Andrey Surkov. ⛈️ The existing cloud service model is heavily centralised, with giants such as AWS, Azure and Google Cloud controlling >65% of the market. This not only reduces competition and inflates pricing (especially for startups) but also creates a node of overreliance on these select providers, who come with a concreted risk around service outages, data accessibility and their control over client data. With increased demand for reliable compute due to the exponential adoption of #AI, this is a problem space that needs to be tackled. ⛅ NodeShift utilises blockchain technology to distribute process power across a vast network of cloud compute providers, whilst simultaneously reducing lower uptime historically found in the multi-cloud space - this effectively paves the way to reliable, decentralised cloud compute. <20% of computing resources across the globe remain idle, with little ability to be of use, but NodeShift's superior interoperability aggregates these resources, thereby plugging in to untapped cloud services and offering this compute at a much lower price point than incumbents. So what are the top 3 reasons that we invested into NodeShift? 🌐 Innovative integration of complex #Web3 tech into a Web2 experience. ↗️ Surging demand for compute, driven by generative AI and cloud platforms. 🤝 Strong founder duo with past experiences at Microsoft, Cisco & Twitter, and a real passion to democratise cloud infrastructure. Mihai and Andrey have attracted investment from Inovo.vc, Notion Capital, 10x Founders, Kestrel0x1, among others. NodeShift continues to go from strength-to-strength, now offering 30 GPU models through its self-serve platform, and has produced content and how to deploy over 30 different #LLMs through its easy-to-use and affordable infrastructure. We’re excited to follow and support the team in shifting cloud compute to a more decentralised and accessible state! ⚙️ Oxford Seed Fund is powered by the Oxford Saïd Entrepreneurship Centre and is housed in Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

🎉 Starting out strong! Congrats to our fantastic team for completing the first Investment Committee of the year - hours of founder calls & reviewing 100+ decks, exciting deals presented & discussed, results to follow soon… 🙋♀️ If you’re an Oxford student, alumni, or faculty raising funds for your early stage venture, get in touch (link in comments)! 🥇 Europe’s largest student-led venture fund off to a great start to the Michaelmas Term at University of Oxford & Saïd Business School, University of Oxford thanks to our partners Oxford Science Enterprises & our home Oxford Saïd Entrepreneurship Centre.

🌱 For aspiring climate VCs

🎉 University of Oxford’s startup ecosystem going from strength to strength - congrats to Christ Church, Oxford for all the hard work getting to this point

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