The Emerge Showcase aims to recognise and celebrate student entrepreneurship, provide financial support to accelerate start-up growth, encourage students to develop ideas and launch ventures, and cultivate a more enterprising, innovative, and challenge-led university community.
Awards Application Process
In February, applications opened for the third consecutive year. Whether the idea was just a spark, or has already been trading, we encouraged students and alumni from different stages of the business journey to apply with a total share of £19,000 available.
For the 2026 competition, we saw a brilliant response from the university community, receiving 101 applications across 5 categories of awards.
In addition to our support in launching Start-ups, we also champion enterprising activities and encouraged our community to develop their entrepreneurial acumen, providing 2 prizes for the Freelancers Guild and Student Enterprise Champion.
A massive thank you to everyone who helped spread the word across the University of Sheffield, and to every founder who applied.
These applications were reviewed by the enterprise team for selection to the final round of the Awards Showcase.
Learn more about the award categories
Pitching Day
On Thursday 23rd April, we hosted our Dragons Den style pitching event in our Start-up Studio with three brilliant entrepreneurial minds Peter Chambers, Robin Gibbons and Dr Rachel Smith.
20 teams delivered their 5 minute pitches to compete for either the Conceptual Idea, In-development or Gone to Market Category.
Congratulations to the students and Alumni who have spent weeks refining their ventures. The result was an impressive showcase of innovation spanning music, sport, education, health, engineering, food, and technology.
Only 7 businesses won the prize funding, carefully selected by the panel.
I was blown away by the quality of the start-ups coming out of Emerge at the University of Sheffield. It was an honour to sit on the judging panel this year, and I have no doubt that many of these exciting ventures and founders will go on to do amazing things. It’s fantastic to see such a strong pipeline of emerging entrepreneurs from the University’s student and alumni community. The standard of the pitches was exceptionally high and gave me a real start-up buzz!”
Robin Gibbons
Tech Scale-up Advisor & CEO of Latimer Tuition
Meet your finalists - Conceptual Idea Category
You've got a great idea, but will enough people actually want it?
This category focuses on validating market demand; it requires demonstrable evidence that a proposed idea addresses a genuine, existing need within a sufficient target audience.
The brilliant finalists who pitched include a mix of University of Sheffield Alumni and students and include:
🩸endometrioSIS - Ayse Durmus, Maisie Hill, Jeet Tse, Seren A Hinchliffe.
Unlocking the full potential of menstrual blood. The EndoPad is an at-home testing kit to detect endometriosis.
🔨 Calloh - Joshua Bastock
Never Miss A Customer Again. A call-capture and booking system designed to ensure that small businesses never miss a potential customer enquiry, even when they are unable to answer the phone.
🍬 Moments - Rose Martin
A premium functional truffle designed to provide a moment of calm, support relaxation and signal the transition into recovery.
🐮 Buchanan Robotics - William Buchanan
Autonomous cubicle maintenance system designed to reduce the daily labour burden of cleaning and re-bedding dairy cow cubicles
💻The Ethical AI Project - Dr Beckie Ruddock
Helping SMEs make deliberate, confident decisions about AI.
⚽ Ignition Play - Dominic Ford
Inclusive sports and games with a twist inclusive, high-energy after-school program designed to engage every child, no matter their skill level or learning needs.
These teams are at the beginning of their entrepreneurial journey, and we are incredibly proud of the progress they have made over the past year. By engaging with Emerge, they have significantly boosted both their technical knowledge and their professional confidence to reach this milestone. They have backed their vision with realistic data, focusing on market reach and growth projections to prove that their ideas are more than just a hunch.
In-development Category
One of the hardest steps in business is to move beyond the idea and to develop an MVP.
These businesses proved people actually need it. They demonstrated that they're turning their concept into a tangible solution, creating something with genuine customer validation.
8 teams pitched to our panel of judges, with only 2 teams being able to win the £3000 award from Santander UK Universities.
💰FINIA - Temi Ayodeji and Koye Adeyeye
An exclusive AI-driven personal finance app designed for ambition young city professionals, helping them budget smarter, plan ahead and make confident money decisions.
🩺 Azra Health - Sanah G.
A data and communication platform for chronic pain patients and the NHS clinicians responsible for their care.
🛖Project Vex - James Emre Midmer
A battery-powered environmental monitoring device that gives landlords continuous, real-time visibility into conditions that lead to mould growth before visible damage occurs.
👃Nasalyzer - Luisa Maria Bautista de Deus Ponces de Carvalho
Nasalyzer is a first-in-class, non-invasive, point-of-care breath analysis device designed to accurately assess gastric cancer risk in frontline healthcare settings.
🚗RASEM - Wahaj Saif
A deep-tech software that delivers motor design accuracy to 95% within 6 months.
🎶Bump BPM Ltd - Aidan Corkett-Beirne
BUMP BPM is a compact hardware device that measures and displays the exact BPM (beats per minute) of vinyl records in real time, allowing DJs to align tracks precisely rather than relying on estimation.
🖥️NoteMate - Benjamin Tindal
NoteMate is an AI-powered lecture note-taking tool that records or ingests any audio or video, transcribes it with 95%+ accuracy, and generates structured notes automatically — in the format most useful for the student.
⛏️Promptable - Chris Muscroft
Promptable is an AI platform that captures, structures, and makes operational knowledge accessible for manufacturing.
Gone to Market
You've launched your business and are formally registered.
This category is for established Start-ups who have proven they can attract customers and generate income and are looking for funding for continued development. There should be a viable plan to use this funding to scale or significantly develop the product/service to secure repeatable, ongoing business. We're looking for founders who have a clear vision and a solid strategy for turning their early success into long-term sustainability and success.
🚨 Deep Sym Ltd - Kira Zhigalina
Deep Sym is a real-time biofeedback device designed to help therapists and practitioners to deliver breathing techniques in a more engaging, intuitive and effective way.
🧑🏫Excelas.ai - John Quy
AI exam marking platform where teachers can go to upload scans of their students' practice papers to get instant results and feedback. This saves teachers time and boosts student progression.
🏎️ AJ Racing - Ami Jerger
AJ Racing is a structured, high-performance karting team specifically designed to support and retain female drivers within owner-driver karting—the most critical and currently underserved stage of the motorsport pathway.
📱Zap Dock Ltd - Sujaya Fernando
Zap Dock is a "Scan, Grab, Go" network of automated kiosks dispensing portable power banks with built-in cables. We provide total mobility: users rent a compact battery in seconds, charge while remaining active in the venue, and return it to any kiosk in our network.
✂️ ProtoGT - Edward George and William Toms
ProtoGT is an engineering consultancy focused on early stage prototype development for businesses that need to test and refine new product ideas quickly.
Motion is a digital wellbeing and engagement platform designed to help care homes demonstrate the quality of care they provide, improve resident outcomes, and rebuild trust with families.
Awards Showcase Live Event
Preparations are underway for our Awards Showcase Live Event next week! Taking place on Thursday 14th May 2026, we'll be treated to presentations from the winning businesses.
The University of Sheffield is a massive engine for the city's economy, and this showcase is your direct look at the innovation pipeline. It’s a chance to connect with the next generation of founders who will scale companies in South Yorkshire.
We’re bringing together the Emerge community, Santander UK Universities, University of Sheffield Alumni and regional business leaders to create a space where students, founders, and investors can talk.
If you'd like to join us and mingle with some of the best entrepreneurial minds in Sheffield. Find out more:
