Noggin HQ
Childhood friends Evangeline Atkinson and Laura Mills are on a mission to help the millions of people who are prevented from borrowing money because of their credit score, or the fact they don’t have one.
After originally founding the company in London, the pair have set up base in their native Newcastle and have already attracted £710,000 in seed funding to launch the new price comparison platform, where people can purchase products with fair and transparent credit terms. Evangeline seized upon the idea after being rejected for a mobile phone contract, saying that “with one in three º£½ÇÊÓƵ adults now estimated to have difficulty accessing products from mainstream lenders, a solution is much neededâ€.
Noggin scooped the Start-up on the year award at the North East Business Awards 2024.
Grid Finder
Newcastle tech firm Grid Finder is destined to motor into 2025, around two years after its founders met in a queue for a bar. Just 19 months after first receiving local angel investment, Grid Finder was acquired by US-based motorsports group RAFA Racing Club in a transaction understood to be worth several millions of pounds.
Grid Finder had been a hobby project, launched by founder Tom Stapley-Bunten in late 2020 anddesigned to help online racing gamers find communities to race with across Playstation, XBox and PC on games such as F1, Gran Turismo and Forza.
The plans moved up several gears when he met his co-founder Nikhil Patel at a tech networking event put on by North East accelerator Ignite at By The River Brew Co in Gateshead, where they also got talking to angel investor Kevin Beales, who went on to lead Grid Finder’s pre-seed investment round.
NunaBio
NunaBio is just one of the many Newcastle Helix businesses currently making waves in the global biotech sector. Traditional industry production methods for DNA are not capable of meeting global demand from rapidly expanding markets, so the new processes for the synthesis and rapid scaling of DNA that NunaBio has created are crucial to the emerging and established industries.
NunaBio, which is based at the Newcastle Helix science and business park, was founded in April 2021 to capitalise on technology developed by founders Dr Andrew Pike and Dr Eimer Tuite. The company, later joined by CEO Dr Joe Hedley, has developed novel ways of DNA synthesis which enables it to supply DNA to clients quickly, and at a scale and cost which it says other firms can’t match.
The Newcastle University spin-out has already attracted several rounds of investment to help accelerate its work. As Alex Buchan, investment director at Northstar Ventures, said: “The demand for NunaBio’s DNA product and its potential impact on a global level cannot be overstatedâ€.
H2CHP
The highly promising green technology behind H2CHP was developed by Durham University professor Tony Roskilly. His free-piston engine is “fuel flexibleâ€, meaning it can generate power and heat efficiently from a range of clean fuels.
The concept was originally intended to cut carbon emissions from ships as they idled in harbours with engines running, but the start-up is now looking at much wider applications, including for sectors which require off-grid power. This year H2CHP secured £600,000 investment led by Scottish investors Tricapital Angels, which will be combined with £1.3m from Innovate º£½ÇÊÓƵ to establish a manufacturing plant in the country.
It comes after the start-up took part in the 2050 Maritime Innovation Hub’s Venture Connect cleantech accelerator programme along with seven other eight other North East businesses. Dr Stephen Hampson leads H2CHP and says the technology could revolutionise clean energy solutions and create º£½ÇÊÓƵ-based manufacturing opportunities.
MOBIE
TV architect George Clarke is on a mission to simultaneously elevate the level of architectural design in the º£½ÇÊÓƵ, and get more young people to consider a career in the built environment sector. He launched the Ministry of Building Innovation and Education (MOBIE) in 2017 to “inspire young people to revolutionise the way we think about homesâ€. Since then it has successfully staged a number of design challenges that have engaged school children - including a programme to mark the 60th anniversary of Washington new town.
It was that ‘homecoming’ to the North East that was the catalyst for a wholesale move of the charity to Wearside, announced by Mr Clarke earlier this year. The Amazing Spaces star says he now wants MOBIE to focus entirely on the North East, where he said the response to the Washington design challenge was phenomenal.
From its headquarters in the forthcoming Housing Innovation and Construction Skills Academy (HICSA) building in Sunderland, MOBIE will stage week-long bootcamps for young people between the ages of 10-18, as well as other activities, which it hopes will open eyes to the broad varierty of jobs in housebuilding, and the wider construction sector.
