Inspiring women profiles

What does the company do?

Gravity Sketch is a 3D design tool enabling designers to ideate, visualise and communicate concepts in real-time. Gravity Sketch provides an immersive experience via VR (Virtual Reality) and AR (Augmented Reality) devices whilst designing your 3D creations. They target multiple sectors including automotive, concept arts and education.

The founder

Daniela is a Masters graduate of the RCA’s Innovation Design Engineering programme (2014) and previously studied Industrial Design at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico. She was also a James Dyson Fellow in 2014. She is particularly interested in the human aspect of technology and is always trying to understand people's behaviour. Her biggest driver in developing Gravity Sketch was ‘clever simplicity in interactions’ and a desire to understand those interactions.

The company 

Gravity Sketch was developed through Daniela’s university project at The Royal College of Art and Imperial College London. Whilst studying there, she met Oluwaseyi Sosanya who is the co-founder of Gravity Sketch. Recognising that the company had the potential to become a viable commercial solution for designers, they started the business and ran it in parallel with their last year at university. Gravity Sketch is now one of the fastest-growing 3D creation start-ups. Since starting the business, they have raised more than £2.2m through a seed funding round and two grants.

What does the company do?

Exonate lead program aims to introduce a revolutionary eye drop for the treatment of retinal vascular diseases, including wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration (wAMD) which is the leading cause of vision loss in people aged 60 and older, and Diabetic Macular Oedema (DME). It aspires to successfully deliver medicines in areas of unmet need, by targeting diseases through regulation of VEGF (Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor) isoforms/variants that are both protective and disease promoting.

The founders

Lucy Donaldson is a Professor in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Nottingham. She is a qualified non-practicing dentist, with degrees in Neuroscience and Pharmacology. Prof Donaldson’s body of work has made a substantial contribution in the field of sensory physiology, including understanding the mechanisms of sensory signaling, and altered sensation in disease. Her research group was instrumental in the discovery that VEGF isoforms can suppress pain, including in animal models of disease. She is a co-founder scientist along with Prof. David Bates (University of Nottingham) and Prof. Steven Harper (University of Bristol).

The company 

Exonate is a privately held, early stage spinout from the University of Nottingham. Exonate is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of small molecule drugs that modulate alternative mRNA splicing to address diseases of high unmet medical need. The company is founded on scientific excellence with strong links to Prof. David Bates and his lab at Nottingham University specialising in the biology and biochemical pathways of VEGF splice variants. In addition Exonate has formed academic collaborations with the university of New South Wales (Australia) and Professor Jonathan Morris.

The CEO is Dr Catherine Beech, who has over 25 years of biotech and pharmaceutical industry experience, 12 of which were within the pharma industry leading drug development programmes in hypertension, heart failure, Parkinson’s Disease and HIV. In 2008 she was awarded the OBE for services to technology and innovation. 

What does the company do?

Drop-tech has developed a droplets-on-demand sampler and add-on microfluidic chips to make droplet generation easily accessible. Drop-Tech is a spin-out company resulting from a scientific collaboration between the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London. The company started selling its first product, the Dropix, in partnership with Dolomite Microfluidics in July 2013. The company also provides Microfluidics consultancy and provides installation of and training for ultra-high-throughput microfluidic systems in academia and industry. Dr Fabrice Gielen, Research Fellow in Physics and Astronomy at Uni of Exeter, is co-founder of the company.

The co-founder

Liisa has an M.Phil and Ph.D. in the field of drug discovery and over 10 years research in miniaturisation and microdroplets at the University of Cambridge. She worked for a global business consulting firm before returning to science with a BBSRC/RSE Enterprise Fellowship award to found Drop-Tech in May 2010. She was nominated as “Rising Star” and one of the BioBeat 50 Movers and Shakers in BioBusiness 2014, and has won several Business competitions. Liisa is passionate about bringing technology and Science to market for the benefit of all, particularly for healthcare and social applications. She has given Entrepreneurship workshops for several EU network consortia and since 2012 facilitates and mentors for programmes run by the Entrepreneurship Centre (Judge Business School, Cambridge), and she also runs Entrepreneurship workshops to address the UN sustainable development goals. She continues to develop microfluidic droplet systems for drug discovery, personalized medicine and diagnostics. 

What does the company do?

A pioneering chemical technology company, Econic creates new value from waste CO2 for the plastics industry. Its catalysts convert waste CO2 from industrial processes and power generation to produce polymers that are suitable for use in a wide range of applications. These include packaging, soft furnishings, insulation and structural foams, clothing, shoes, adhesives and protective coatings.

Use of Econic’s catalyst technologies results in both economic and environmental benefits. Up to 50% of existing, expensive fossil fuel-based raw materials can be replaced by waste or readily available CO2inpolymer production. Because econic’s catalysts operate under conditions suitable for retro-fit of existing manufacturing plants, there is a lower capital requirement and using the process is expected to show a return on investment within two years. Econic’s catalyst technologies turn CO2 into a useful raw material for plastics instead of it being released as a harmful waste gas. The company has ambitious goals, for example it aims for 30% of all polyol production to utilize its catalyst technologies by 2026. This could potentially save 3.5 million tonnes of CO2 emissions each year – the equivalent to taking some two million cars off the road.

The founder

Econic Technologies was co-founded by Professor Charlotte Williams in 2011 while she a faculty member and EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow at Imperial College London. She is currently Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow in Inorganic Chemistry at Trinity College Oxford. She combines an academic career with being a Director and the Chief Scientific Officer of Econic. Her research interests are in the area of catalysis and polymer chemistry, including polymerisation catalysts, CO2 activation, and the catalytic valorisation of renewable resources.

What does the company do?

Brill Power aims to make batteries more intelligent to increase the lifetime performance of lithium-ion battery packs. Their hardware and software solutions change the way that multi-cell batteries operate and improves their performance, reliability and lifespan. Brill Power is a spinout from the University of Oxford and was developed in 2016 by four co-founders with expertise in power electronics, battery degradation, and battery modelling.

The founder

Carolyn Hicks is the co-founder of Brill Power and current Head of Finance and Operations. She holds degrees in engineering and business, and before becoming an entrepreneur, worked in infrastructure engineering, economics, and finance in both Canada and the UK.