Empowering underrepresented founders in advanced materials

Highlights from the entrepreneurship clinics

Innovate UK Business Connect and Growth Studio launched a new pilot initiative designed to support 13 traditionally underrepresented early-stage founders innovating in advanced materials, battery materials, or critical materials.

Sector focussed venture capital

The path to building a deeptech venture is not easy; being a specialised area of investment that focuses on startups developing science and engineering based technologies aimed at solving complex, fundamental problems.

Deeptech ventures often:

• Are technically complex: the core technology often requires deep expertise to understand and validate.
• Have significant R&D needs: extensive prototyping and testing is required before building a minimum viable product.
• Have potential for long-term impact: these technologies are not rooted in short-term trends but instead have applications that can reshape existing markets or even create new ones.

For founders from underrepresented backgrounds, the barriers to building a deeptech venture can be even higher. Some of the imbalances include:

• Female founders receive 3.7% of total VC Funding
• Black female founders received just 0.02% of total funding
• 75% of VC-funded founders come from advantaged backgrounds

About the clinics

Supporting founders at the earliest stages ensures that promising ideas don’t fall through the cracks before they can benefit from Innovate UK’s wider ecosystem. Many underrepresented founders don’t yet have the networks or confidence to engage with Innovate UK’s various funding mechanisms. That’s why, through a collaborative approach, Innovate UK Business Connect and Growth Studio, an accelerator that helps purpose-driven startups become investment-ready, launched the entrepreneurship clinics, a new initiative designed to support 13 diverse early-stage founders innovating in advanced materials.

The clinics act as a gateway to bringing in new technologies developed by people with different perspectives, leading to more creative and inclusive innovation. Across the three days, founders took part in interactive workshops, peer-to-peer learning, and fireside chats with experienced investors and founders. The cohort gained practical tools, knowledge, and connections to help them take their first steps toward raising investment.

The Programme at a glance

Day 1 – The founder mindset & value proposition

• Becoming a great founder in a messy world – how to build resilience, confidence, and focus.
• Articulating value propositions – defining the problem, customer, and market.
• AI for founders – using AI prompts and tools to support business model development & validation.
• The mechanics of a fundraise – the essentials of raising your first investment.
• Investor fireside chat – what investors really look for at the early stage.

Day 2 – Building the business model & story

• Business model canvas masterclass – mapping out how ideas become investable businesses.
• Crafting the first investor deck – condensing your vision into a clear 3-minute pitch.
• Founders fireside chat – Innovate UK alumni founders sharing their journeys, wins, & challenges.

Day 3 – Protecting, pitching, and building chemistry

• Protecting your IP and business – legal essentials from day one.
• Building investor chemistry – finding, approaching, and connecting with the right investors.
• Pitch clinic & dragons’ den panel – founders delivered their pitches to an expert panel and received constructive feedback.

Key takeaways for founders

Throughout the three days, several themes emerged that resonated with the cohort:

Applying deeptech to the real world

Even groundbreaking science needs a business model. Investors look for signs that the startup understands who your market is/isn’t and that the product is solving a customer need. At the early stages, seek meaningful feedback from potential customers, don’t try to sell your product too early, and prepare to let initial product ideas go.

Network with energy and purpose

Building investor chemistry is about relationships-based trust, transparency and aligned expectations, not purely transactional. Aside from capital, deeptech VCs can provide mentorship, strategic support on go-to-market strategy and scaling lab-based innovations.

Prioritise legal readiness

Deeptech ventures are built around fundamental scientific breakthroughs/engineering innovations which long product development cycles, so the intellectual property is the crux of the startup’s value. Therefore, a strong IP strategy is essential for protecting your competitive edge and attracting long-term investment.

Not all fundraising options are equal

Early-stage founders should explore non-dilutive routes like government grants and blended models such as Investor Partnerships before giving up equity too soon. Check for eligibility under the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme can also make future investments more attractive with tax relief options for investors. The goal is to raise smart, not just raise fast, to build a strong foundation for sustainable growth.

AI tools can be powerful co-founders

AI can lower the barrier to entrepreneurship. If you’ve got an idea, you don’t need a huge team to try it out. Using the right prompts and tools means you can save time on validation, modelling, and fundraising preparation. An example is building an ideal customer profile not just based on demographic details but also buyer behaviour, pain points, and decision triggers.

Meet the innovators

The cohort is made up of 13 founders who are at different stages in their entrepreneurship journey; lab testing, prototype development, pre-spinout and preparing for their first fundraise. They also represent different sectors and lived experiences:

• 40% are from an ethnic minority group
• 25% are women
• 10% come from a low socioeconomic background
• 5% identify as LGBTQ+

Looking ahead

This pilot was just the beginning. The goal is to build a stronger pipeline of diverse, investor-ready founders innovating in advanced materials, and to help ensure the UK remains at the forefront of this critical sector. We’re excited to follow the journeys of these 13 founders and share their progress in the months ahead.

If you are an industry expert, or deeptech investor we invite you to reach out to explore opportunities for mentoring and attending our investor showcase at Materials Research Exchange 2026 to see our dynamic cohort of advanced materials innovators in action.