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BVCA LAUNCHES 'TECH COUNTRY' AT UMIC In March, the British Venture Capital Association (BVCA) launched its much-awaited 'Tech Country' report to its members, technology entrepreneurs and the private equity and venture capital community at UMIC. 'Tech Country' highlights five key clusters of successful business outside of London: Cambridge, Manchester, Bristol, Aberdeen and Birmingham that have the potential to bring enormous economic and social benefits to the UK as a whole. The launch included opening remarks by Professor Rod Coombs, the University's Deputy President and Deputy ViceChancellor, an overview of the report by James Clark of the BVCA followed by a panel debate featuring successful entrepreneurs from the locations featured in the report and a drinks reception. James Clark comments "The BVCA's objective for Tech Country was to return the focus of our political leaders to the regions by highlighting the role that organisations like UMI3 will play in forming the technological future of this country. The event showed the enormous potential of the emerging technology cluster in Manchester, provided the grass roots efforts of the technological, entrepreneurial, and investment community are properly supported." You can read the executive summary and download the full report from the BVCA's website. James Clark, BVCA MANCHESTER ENTREPRENEURS, THE 'RISING STARS OF EUROPE', MAKE AN IMPACT STATESIDE Kaffeination Ltd, behind the innovative new caffeinated sweets called UPs Solid Energy, beat 14 teams in the finals in Brussels to be crowned champions. They were also crowned with the 'Rising Star of Europe 2013 award'. A team of entrepreneurs from Manchester Business School won the first prize in the European final of 'The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) International Business Plan Competition'. The team members Matthias Schmid, Shiraz Anwar and David K Reetz all studied on the MSc Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship degree programme at Manchester Business School and won the University's business start-up competition, Venture Further, in 2012. "To win the European Final was fantastic. The last year has been amazing for us – and with the fantastic support from UMIC and IQuBit in giving us a space to work from we've been able to concentrate our efforts on developing the business," comments Co-Founder, Matthias Schmid. They then progressed to the world finals of the Rice University International Business Plan Competition in Houston, Texas in April where they competed with 41 other finalists from across the globe to win part of a $1 million-plus prize fund. Although not outright winners, Kaffeination were 3rd in the Best Elevator Pitch, 1st in Flight 5 of the Shark Tank Round and winners of McGuire Woods Best Company Showcase. can create. UPs SolidEnergy, our highly caffeinated and vitamin enriched energy gummies, went down amazingly well in America, so much so we've been encouraged to launch UPs in the US as soon as possible. We are following up exciting leads and contacts we made and this was all possible due to the exposure we got at Rice to venture capitalist, serial entrepreneurs and business leaders," comments David Reetz, Co-Founder. Find out more about UPs Solid Energy at: http://get-ups.com "Competing at the Rice Business Plan completion has helped validate the exciting global market opportunity our venture UMIC TENANT EPISTEM COLLABORATES WITH SCANDIDERMA TO DEVELOP A NEW LIVING SKIN EQUIVALENT TESTING MODEL FOR TESTING INFLAMMATORY RESPONSES Spin-out, Epistem, the biotechnology and personalised medicine company with expertise in skin biology and delivery of dermatological testing services, and ScandiDerma, a Norwegian company with expertise in developing new dermatological ingredients from biomass, have announced that they aim to develop a new in vitro human living skin equivalent model for testing inflammatory responses. This is a novel method that will add to the field of dermatological testing as a whole and help create more activity in extracting high value compounds from biomass. The collaboration is made possible through the UK's innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board, and Innovation Norway following a successful application for funding in the "Sustainable high value chemical manufacture through industrial biotechnology" competition. Matthew Walls, Epistem CEO commented: "The collaboration with ScandiDerma presents an exciting opportunity to leverage Epistem's strong scientific background in skin biology and inflammation to address the shortage of robust human dermatology models for testing inflammatory responses." Ingebjørg Pernille Nedal, CEO ScandiDerma said: "For ScandiDerma this is an important milestone in building up our competence around test-systems and how to rapidly determine good lead candidates from our bioprospecting activities." The project will last from May 2013 to March 2014 and will run from the project leader Epistem's facilities in the University's Innovation Centre and ScandiDerma's facilities in Barents Biocenter, Tromsø, Norway. www.epistem.co.uk 13

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