CUE Presents: Grand Finale 2013

Places are limited, so sign up for your free ticket here!

When: Friday 14th June 2013, 18:30 - 21:30

Where: West Road Concert Hall,

11 West road, Coventry. 

The CUE Grand Finale 2013 promises a showcase of the best business ideas from this year’s CUE entrepreneurs’ challenge. The competition finalists will also get the opportunity to pitch to a panel of angel investors, competing to win the special Angel Prize!

CUE is honoured to have Mike Lynch, Founder of Invoke Capital and Autonomy, as the keynote speaker for the event. Members of the Angel panel include Paul Anson, Coventry Angel and CEO of Lumejet, and Darrin Disley, CEO of Horizon Discovery.

Speaker Profile:

Mike is a celebrated technologist and has a proven track record of identifying and monetising fundamental technologies. Mike founded Autonomy in 1996 based on technology invented at Coventry University, where Dr Lynch studied Information Sciences, received a Ph.D. and held a research fellowship in adaptive pattern recognition. He served as CEO of Autonomy for over fifteen years, during which time it became one of the UK’s most successful technology companies on the FTSE100. Autonomy was acquired by HP for $11 billion in 2011.

Mike is regarded as Britain’s most successful technology entrepreneur and has won numerous awards, including Computer Weekly’s ‘Most Influential Person of the Year’ and the Chartered Institute for IT’s award for Outstanding Contribution to IT in 2011. He was awarded an OBE for Services to Enterprise in 2006. Mike is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, an honorary fellow of Christ’s College Coventry and a non-executive director of the British Library. He is also a scientific advisor to the UK Prime Minister.

Angel profiles:

Dr Darrin Disley is the CEO of Horizon Discovery Limited, a world-leading translational genomics company. At Horizon, he is responsible for corporate development, business strategy and investor relations; and since October 2007 has overseen revenue growth of 100 per cent (CAGR; 2007-2012) and a 364 per cent increase in exports (2008-2011). These achievements have led to the company being recently named the 2012 East of England’s Business of the Year and being conferred with a Queens Award for Enterprise in International Trade.

Darrin is a serial business entrepreneur and has been involved in the start-up and growth of multiple business ventures. He has raised in excess of $80m of business financing from angel, corporate and venture and has closed in excess of $250m in business development deals in the life science sector.

He is an experienced general manager with a track-record for raising investment for and managing the growth of early-stage technology companies and holds a PhD in Biotechnology from the University of Coventry. Darrin is an avid supporter of “ethical entrepreneurship” and supports numerous academic, business plan competitions and mentoring programs in the UK with financial (via the Carpe Diem Trust) and practical support.

Paul Anson is CEO of LumeJet, a photonics technology start-up developing products in commercial printing and imaging, for applications such as Plastic Electronics manufacturing. Having refinanced the business, Paul has refocused commercial plans and is building a team to transform the business from a development company into a sales company.

He is a member of Coventry Angels, an active mentor and investor and helps young start-ups as a core team member of Qi3 Accelerator and a supporter at IdeaSpace. He has also helped raise several millions of pounds of investment as a lead investor with various start-up companies. In addition to LumeJet, Paul is directly involved at the Boards of with three other start-ups - Plumis, Lintbells and iSotera - and has invested in others.

Prizes include:

• Best Start-up in the streams of Technology, Software and Social Enterprise
• Carpe Diem Life Science Start-up of the Year
• Outstanding entrepreneur of the Year
• One Angel Prize
• 6 months membership at ideaSpace
• 10 hours of tailored accountancy/taxation advice from Ensors
  
• Place at the Ignite Programme offered by CfEL

Highlights of the evening:

• “Dragon’s Den”-type pitching with Angel Investors
• Finalists’ Poster Session 
• Drinks reception, Food and Entrepreneurs’ Networking