Impact

Since 2012, the Mayor’s Entrepreneur has awarded £560,000 start-up funding to winning student ideas, and over £80,000 in additional funding to winners and finalists.

In 2020 and 2021, we provided a selection of our winners and finalists with COVID-19 grants to support them in completing projects that had been halted due to restrictions imposed during the pandemic. A total of £63,900 was provided to support the business, patent files, equipment costs and more.

In 2022, we offered three of our programme graduates funding to employ an intern on a three-month basis. A total of £18,000 was provided to Too Good To Go (2017 finalist), The Tyre Collective (2020 winner) and CQ Studio (2022 winner). Hear about their journeys in our case studies below!

Over 3000 student business ideas have been submitted and over 6000 students trained at workshops on employability and entrepreneurship skills, and

81% of the winning business ideas since 2012 are still trading, while there has been over £33 million in inward investment to previous winners and finalists, and still growing.