Cambridge Tech Week Pitch Competition 2026: Meet the Finalists
Updated: 2 days ago
Cambridge Tech Week's pitch competition is back. This year's shortlist might be the strongest yet. James and Faye sit down with all five finalists ahead of their head-to-head on the main stage of the Cambridge Corn Exchange on 16 September 2026.
It's a special episode, a reunion of sorts. Four of the five companies have featured on the podcast before, many as #21toWatch winners. The fifth, an Edinburgh-based AI company, shows that Cambridge Tech Week's reach now extends well beyond the Fens.
Three minutes each. Two prizes on offer. Here's who's in the running:
🏆 Meet the Five Finalists
HotHouse Therapeutics (Norwich) — Spun out of Professor Anne Osbourn's lab at the John Innes Centre, HotHouse is engineering plants to produce entirely new-to-nature vaccine adjuvants. Their target? Replacing QS-21, currently extracted from a slow-growing Chilean tree at over £100,000 per gram, with a scalable, less toxic, bioengineered alternative of similar efficacy. First IP filed. Commercial conversations are underway with partners in both human and animal health. Backed by £2.9 million in pre-seed funding from SynBioVen, Start Codon, UKI2S, Twin Path Ventures, Wren Capital, and an Innovate UK grant.
"Watch out for it" — Phil, Co-Founder, HotHouse Therapeutics
Lambda agri (Cambridge) — Dr Monica Saavedra's agritech company has developed GloGro, an additive embedded into greenhouse paint and polytunnel sheeting. It converts damaging UV light into red light, boosting photosynthesis and delivering up to 20% more yield per crop. Originally a solar company, Lambda agri pivoted three and a half years ago and hasn't looked back. They are now in conversations with multinational partners across agriculture and fielding inbound interest from other industries too.
Polytecks (Cambridge) — Ruben Ruiz-Mateos Serrano and his team are making "the skin a window into the body." Built on 15 years of University of Cambridge research, Polytecks has developed a novel conducting polymer woven into e-textile electrode arrays. These arrays map the body's electrical activity in high-density detail — no gel, no wires. Their first product, SwiftStage, stages the most common cardiac disease in dogs. A 500-dog veterinary trial is now underway, and a pre-seed round is currently open.
"Every cell, every organ in your body runs on electricity — and it can be grasped from the skin." — Ruben Ruiz-Mateos Serrano, Co-Founder & CEO, Polytecks
Xplore Intelligence (Edinburgh) — The only non-Cambridge finalist, Xplore Intelligence is building the infrastructure to make agentic AI trustworthy. Their Forge platform simulates real operational environments to train and benchmark entire AI agent systems. This helps catch hallucinations and errors before they reach users in regulated sectors like MedTech and logistics. They've secured their first £1 million+ enterprise contract and are raising a £1.5 million pre-seed round.
"This is what makes AI actually usable — where you can't afford to get wrong results." — George, CTO & Co-Founder, Xplore Intelligence
🎯 Why Are They Competing?
The answer is consistent across all five: it's not just about the prize money.
Fundraising momentum — Multiple founders are mid-round and treating the stage as a high-quality investor touchpoint.
Ecosystem reach — Cambridge Tech Week draws a global audience. For Xplore Intelligence, it's a deliberate bridge from Edinburgh into the Cambridge and broader UK deep tech community.
Connections from unexpected places — As Monica put it: "Sometimes you find capital from the most unlikely places."
👨⚖️ The Judges
The live final is sponsored by Mills & Reeve, PwC, and Julius & Clark. Judging on the day: Zickie Lim (Partner & Head of VC & Investments, Mills & Reeve), Maralina Ayani-Odo (British Business Bank), Richard Lewis (Foresight Group), and Emmy Nickel (Cambridge Angels). Two prizes are up for grabs: Judges' Award and People's Choice Award.
📍 Be there in person: Wednesday 16 September, Cambridge Corn Exchange. Tickets at cambridgetechweek.co.uk.
Subscribe on all major podcast platforms or visit cambridgetechpodcast.com. 🎧
Hosted by *James Parton and Faye Holland. Produced by Carl Homer of Cambridge TV. Supported by media partner Business Weekly
Episode Transcript
Welcome to the Cambridge Tech Podcast. We discuss all things technology from the heart of the UK's tech capital. Here are your hosts, Fay Holland and James Parton.
Hi, I'm James. And I'm Fay. This week's episode is dedicated to the five finalists that are going head to head at the Cambridge Tech Week Pitch Competition next month. Let's start with a little bit of history.
Sam and Ruben were both on the podcast in March this year as winners of 21 to Watch. Monica was featured in March 2025 as a 21 to Watch winner. Phil also appeared with Dave Shepard in January this year in their own episode.
So it feels, James, a bit like a reunion of 21 to Watch and Cambridge Tech podcast greats, doesn't it? It's great to have some familiar faces back on. We're doing a good job of picking the right companies early, aren't we? We certainly are. We're thrilled that one of the finalists is a non-Cambridge company. They will also be pitching. We'll hear from George at Explore Intelligence shortly.
This might be the most ambitious podcast we've ever attempted in terms of the number of people around this table. Let's start with some intros. Let us know who you are, your company, and one word to describe how you feel about being selected for this year's pitch competition.
Phil, let's start with you. I'm Phil, one of the co-founders of Hot House Therapeutics. We're based in Norwich, and my word is excited.
Hello, I'm Dr. Monica Saavedra, founder and CEO of Lambda Agri, based in Cambridge. My word would be, ooh, anticipating. I'm Ruben, co-founder and CEO of Polytex. We're based in Cambridge, and my word is also excited. Grateful.
I'm George, CTO and co-founder of Explore Intelligence, and I feel amazed. Brilliant. You've all passed the first test of coming up with a word to describe how you feel. Thank you, everyone. Now, let's move on to what the pitch will be like. During the pitch, you have exactly three minutes to present. This is two minutes longer than what I gave you when you were 21 to Watch finalists. So that should be a walk in the park for all of you.
In the style of the pitch competition, we want to give you each the opportunity to say a few words about your company and what you're doing. This is not your polished pitch. It's just a chat. We'll go in the same order as before. Phil, you're up.
At Hothouse Therapeutics, we are building humanity's defence against infectious disease. We are developing novel and new-to-nature vaccine adjuvants. Adjuvants stimulate the immune system when you have a vaccine. They enhance efficacy, allowing the vaccine to work effectively. We have engineered biological systems to produce new-to-nature vaccine adjuvants. We've filed our first IP and have compounds similar in efficacy to the gold standard, QS21. Our adjuvants have less toxicity, a new mode of action, and are more scalable. Currently, we're in conversations with several vaccine players in both human and animal health who want to test our compounds. We're making great commercial progress.
Monica, your turn.
We have a nice history. We were a solar company developing a solution to convert ultraviolet light from the sun, which damages solar panels, into red light to increase power output. Three and a half years ago, we pivoted to agri. We now use an additive called GloGro, which we embed in greenhouse paint. It gets spray-coated on commercial greenhouses and polytunnel sheeting. This reduces damaging UV light and increases beneficial red light. Plants absorb this light better, leading to sweeter crops, more yield, and faster turnaround. We are in conversations with various industrial partners, including multinationals.
Ruben, it's your turn.
At Polytechs, we are making the skin a window into the body. Every cell and organ in your body runs on electricity. This ability to communicate means we have one of the richest sources of information in the body, accessible from the skin. We developed a high-density electrophysiology platform to map the body's electrical activity in detail, comfortably and non-invasively. This comes from 15 years of research at the university. Our first product, Swift Stage, is in veterinary cardiology, staging the most common cardiac disease in dogs. We're currently conducting our largest veterinary trial with 500 dogs and are in the middle of our first pre-seed round.
George, over to you.
At Explore Intelligence, we are making agentic AI safer and more explainable. We built a data protocol that checks every output against the source data. If a language model invents something or provides incorrect information, we catch it before it reaches the user. This makes AI usable in regulated industries like MedTech and logistics. We've secured our first multi-year enterprise contract with a MedTech company from Europe. We're finishing our university validation, showing a 30% increase against state-of-the-art methods.
Let's move on to an important question: why participate in this competition? Phil, why take the time out? What's the benefit?
We're currently raising funds, so that's a clear benefit. But getting our name out there and the publicity that comes with it is also valuable. It allows us to tell the world what we're building. For me, it's about connection. You meet people you wouldn't otherwise encounter, often from a large audience. Cambridge Tech Week is expecting one.
Ruben, what outcomes are you looking for?
We're also in the middle of a round, so connections and networking are essential. We want to use this opportunity to reach out and let people know what we're doing. It's important for us to understand the ecosystem, not just the one we know, but the adjacent and extended ones.
George, you're based in Edinburgh. How did you discover Cambridge Tech Week, and what do you hope to gain?
We are deep in the Edinburgh ecosystem. This pitch competition can bridge us to other universities. Our research track is crucial. We're forming a consortium with Edinburgh and Scotland-based universities to validate our technology across industries. We're looking for investors and connections to the research community.
Thank you, everyone. That was a quick introduction to each of your companies and why you're pitching at Cambridge Tech Week. Good luck to all. The decision is down to the judges, not James and me.
The lead judge and overall pitch competition sponsor is Ziki Lim from Mills and Reeves. We also have Maralina Ayani-Odo from the British Business Bank, Richard Lewis from Foresight Group, and Emmy Nickel of Cambridge Angels. They are the judges on the day.
A quick shout out to the award co-sponsors: Julius and Clark, PwC, and Bain. Two prizes are up for grabs: the Judges Award and the People's Choice Award. Hopefully, this episode has whet your appetite for the pitching final. To be there in person and see who wins, pick up your tickets from cambridgetechweek.co.uk.
Today's show was produced by Carl Homer of Cambridge TV and supported by our media partner, Business Weekly. The Cambridge Tech Podcast is available on all major podcast platforms and on cambridgetechpodcast.com. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please give it a five-star review. It will really help others discover the show.
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