Nottingham Startups 2.0

Welcome to the first edition of Nottingham Startups 2.0.

These 14 founder-led startups are not backed by venture capital. Bootstrapped, pre-seed or angel-backed, the enterprises are in the early stages of their journey and either building or harnessing a unique technology.

We invited nominations from our readers, key figures in Nottingham’s tech scene and an array of incubators, accelerators and co-working spaces.

We are running annual Startups 2.0 lists in all major UK cities. To discuss sponsorship, contact the editor Jonathan Symcox at this email address. Options include pitching competitions and roundtables featuring the successful startups.

Subscribe to our Wednesday lunchtime newsletter to keep in the loop and for a weekly dose of entrepreneurial stories, startup growth advice and investor news.

AQS Consultants
AQS Consultants uses data, AI and automation in its AQ Tool to complete faster, cheaper and more accurate air quality assessments. Reports are completed within 48 hours while baseline air quality assessments – including construction dust phase assessments and air quality neutral assessments – are available for free to all local authorities and certain companies that qualify.
Automated Voting and Electronic Systems
Technology that enhances transparency, efficiency and trust in the electoral process. Automated Voting’s system assures voters that their ballots will be accurately and securely processed, whether local, national or within an organisation. It is developing both hardware and software to achieve these aims.
Barrister Link
The process of finding a barrister to represent you at a hearing, to offer advice or prepare a legal bundle can be daunting. Barrister Link aims to simplify this with an online platform for sourcing legal representation and help – covering all aspects of law – which can also handle payments, host legal papers and enable secure communication between the parties.
ChangeXtra
ChangeXtra is on a mission to improve the experience of peri-menopause. Passionate about enabling conversations about the menopause and empowering women through positive change, it delivers training and talks for organisations to create conversations. Its Pausetrack app tracks health and enables self-care to help monitor symptoms and make informed choices for positive change.
Esitu Solutions
Esitu Solutions delivers scientifically validated driver assessment and training tools to fleets to provide objective measures of hazard awareness and risk-taking propensity in drivers. Its online driver profiling system enables users to identify driver risk, whilst its targeted training solutions – which includes virtual reality – mitigate driver risk to create safer drivers and fleets.
Incrypteon
Incrypteon promises that with just three lines of code, an organisation can encrypt all of its data to achieve post-quantum & AI security that works with any application, over any protocol, using any language and for any use case. It says its application layer encryption protects data from sophisticated attackers, supply chain attacks, quantum attacks, AI adversaries as well as insider threats.
Joint Approach
A MedTech app revolutionising care for osteoarthritic knee pain which allows patients to own their treatment. Comprising key elements to improve physical and muscular function alongside psychological components, it aims for sustained behaviour change via a 12-week online multidisciplinary progressive programme which is clinically proven to improve joint pain and function in patients.
Neupulse
Improving the lives of people with Tourette Syndrome. Neupulse is developing a safe and effective non-drug treatment to reduce tics and the urge to tic. This is achieved through gentle stimulation of the median nerve in the wrist via a wearable device which its app will monitor symptoms over time as well as external factors that may influence these symptoms.
PACT
Comprehensive AI training and consulting solutions tailored for a variety of higher education stakeholders. PACT – which stands for Program, Articulate, Converse, Theorise – provides a framework for ‘comprehending’ artificial intelligence and offers smooth onboarding of Al into existing systems, infrastructure guidance, evaluation of initiatives and continued training for staff.
Paper Comet
Paper Comet is an online platform offering personalised, humorous greetings cards for every occasion. Customers can add flowers or sweets to their order. The startup’s unique selling point is creating ‘unique funny cards that feel like they’re straight from your best friend’s quirky sense of humour’.
PeptiMatrix
PeptiMatrix is a University of Nottingham spinout behind a peptide hydrogel platform for 3D cell culture that aims to replace the use of animals and animal-derived products in drug discovery and investigation. Its combination of matrix biologists, cancer scientists, toxicologists and biomaterial engineers develops technologies that address a variety of unmet challenges in 3D in vitro modelling.
Pipeline Organics
Harnessing the power of wastewater to generate clean energy. Pipeline Organics is developing higher efficiency enzymatic biofuel cells to generate clean, continuous renewable electricity from wastewater, helping energy-intensive industries around the world to become more sustainable and meet their Net Zero targets.
Really Clever
A fungal discovery platform pioneering new solutions to some of the planet’s most pressing problems. Really Clever’s technology matches fungal properties with potential sustainable applications, enabling businesses to harness fungi in an optimal way. Clean, sustainable and naturally cruelty-free, it is used in areas including the creation of high-quality leather-like materials and clean fuels.
Swotly
Uses voice technology to improve parental engagement with children’s learning. Instead of having to access one or more apps on their phone, parents use Swotly to enquire about their children’s timetable and homework, while also staying informed about their coursework grades. Most importantly, parents discover the topics their children are studying and even get a brief description of the subject matter. This helps them to ask informed questions.

Nottingham Startups 2.0

AQS Consultants

Automated Voting and Electronic Systems

Barrister Link

ChangeXtra

Esitu Solutions

Incrypteon

Joint Approach

Neupulse

PACT

Paper Comet

PeptiMatrix

Pipeline Organics

Really Clever

Swotly

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