On Wednesday 11 March over 40 students and graduates of London Metropolitan University and Kings University of London joined the 2020 London Venture Crawl. The daylong event takes students on an epic entrepreneurial journey across the capital to experience and explore London’s Startup ecosystem.
This year more than 350 students from 16 universities took part in London Venture Crawl, which saw them boarding 10 iconic London buses and collectively making over 50 stops at Startup spaces and innovation hubs.
Where did students visit during the Venture Crawl?
We secured visits to some fantastic spaces for the Venture Crawl. These included starting that day at Kings College, for an insightful entrepreneur panel talk hosted by Coutts Bank, a private bank and wealth management business. The panel included Angela Middleton, Founder of MiddletonMurray, a multi-award winning Apprenticeship training provider, and Laura Mimoun, Founder of Kaleido Salad Rolls.
The next stop for our London Met students was Runway East near London Bridge. Here they were given a welcome talk, tour and a pitching masterclass, to help improve their delivery and presentation skills.
The day also included a visit to Makervesity – an awesome creative space which provides work space, cutting-edge prototyping facilities and business support for their 300+ members in Somerset House. Students were introduced and inspired by several of their members, including Anthony Dickens, a furniture and product designer who provided students with an insight into their amazing creative practices.
Before heading to our very own Accelerator office, London Met’s business incubator for a Social Media Marketing session, students also visited Rise London, created by Barclays which has over 150 FinTech companies and a virtual community of more than 7,500 members
While at Accelerator, the experts from Experience Haus ran a great session on Storytelling and impact pitching. As Accelerator was the penultimate stop on this year’s Venture Crawl, students spent to remaining time there pitching their ideas for the chance to be selected and represent their university at the final.
Who went through the the finals?
Everyone! The great thing about London Venture Crawl is that all of the universities taking part in the event get to pitch one idea at the final, hosted by Plexal based at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
While the idea selected to represent London Met didn’t win the final pitches, everyone had a fantastic day on the Venture Crawl as ultimately the day is about having fun and learning about entrepreneurship.
How can I take part in the future?
As long as you are a London Met student or graduate, you can register your interest to take part in the next Venture Crawl now. It is an awesome experience and entrepreneurial journey you’ll take part in.