This week's show features Salvatore DiMaggio from KPMG, alongside the Tech Innovators East of England’s competition winners Gwen Wyatt Moon (Prospectral) and runner-up Tim Smeda (Hypergen).

Prospectral is transforming industrial computer vision by bringing material inference to production lines in real-time - they've already secured paid pilots with Rio Tinto and the Singapore government.

Hypergen is solving a different problem entirely, making micro gas turbines viable for industrial power generation by running them 300-400°C hotter than competitors.

Both founders credit Cambridge and Cranfield's startup ecosystems with accelerating their learning curves. Key takeaways:

• Accelerators work best for mentorship and training, not just capital
• University connections unlock validation resources (Hypergen used Cranfield's Innovation Voucher to validate their concept)
• The ecosystem is bidirectional - founders benefit from and contribute back to their communities

What Happens Next

• Prospectral is closing a £3.3M funding round and hiring business development talent who understands camera ecosystems.
• Hypergen is securing corporate manufacturing partnerships to avoid capital-heavy production and hiring electronics engineers before their pilot launch by year-end.
• The competition itself continues to the London final where Gwen will pitch again, and the UK winner advancing to the global KPMG Tech Innovator event in Portugal in November.

Headline sponsor Holden Polestar

Produced by Cambridge TV

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