The cofinitive #21toWatch campaign launched in 2018 to showcase the homegrown innovation across the Cambridge and East of England region. The list is made up of the people, companies and ‘things’ that are shaping the future in their industries locally, nationally and globally. The list in not industry specific and represents a broad spectrum of what the region has to offer. With such a diverse list, the attributes each #OnetoWatch submission is assessed on are Innovation, Challenge, Influence, Viability and Memorability.

Many of 2019’s Top21 have gone on to enjoy great success – securing new rounds of funding, making new mentoring and business connections and securing new clients. What is evident is that this is a campaign that business wants to be a part of – either to be on the list themselves or to be supporting those businesses on it.

As a result of the huge success of the campaign and awards in 2019, we have now renamed the initiative to #21toWatch. Find out more, and view the current people, companies, and ‘things’ lists on our microsite.

At a glance: Top21.2019

CorrosionRADAR co-founder and CEO Dr Chiraz Ennaceur, Waterscope CEO Dr Alexander Patto, particle physicist Dr Mireia Crispin, Geek-whisperer Adelina Chalmers, Darktrace CMO Emily Orton, Simprints CEO and co-founder Toby Norman, Agrimetrics, Satavia, Repositive, Cambridge Glycoscience, Paragraf, CMR Surgical, Exonate,  ROADMap, Sorex Sensors, Colorifix, BIOS, 8 Power, Mursla, ANB Sensors, Cydar Medical.

People Company 'Thing' Longlist Shortlist Top.21 Name Synopsis
Company 10to8
Company 1Spatial
Company 8power A remote condition monitoring solution for industrial assets such as motors, pumps and generators, providing early warning of equipment failure
Thing Inotec AMD ltd A portable device that heals chronic wounds
Thing Overstream Clean A unique social enterprise by Wintercomfort
Company Above Surveying
Company Acacia Pharma
Thing Activinsights A wearables business that delivers lifestyle insight to the global professional healthcare market
People Adelina Chalmers Adelina is a geek who loves enabling tech founders decode how to gain engagement and support for and inside their business
Company Agrimetrics Agrimetrics has the data and data capabilities to inspire game-changing solutions to drive sustainable productivity for the agrifood sector
Thing AI:MMO By Ocado Technology (Code for Life)
People Alan Cowley Co-Founder Invested Investor
People Alexander Patto CEO Waterscope. AlexÔÇÖs research focusses on developing low-cost methods of identifying bacterial contamination for use in low resource settings
People Alexis Mather Founder and Chief Bottlewashing Officer at Nolojy
Thing Algorithm to detect arthritis Developed by University of Cambridge, Department of Engineering
Company Alviol
Thing Atelerix An alginate gel that 'hibernates' cells
Company ANB Sensors Developing cost effective, self-calibrating, low maintenance pH sensors, cutting operating costs by 70% compared to today's systems
People Andrew Sandham Chairman at PredictImmune
Company Aqdot
Company Arcus Global
Company Arecor
Thing ARIC Platform By Featurespace
Company Artios Pharma
Company Audio Analytic
Company Aveillant
Company Avvinity
Company Axol Bioscience
Company Azuri Technologies
Thing Bean IoT BeanIoT(TM) uniquely provides a powerful "Out-of-the-Box", "Internet of Things" solution fit for use by many businesses, across many sectors and applications
Thing Ultrasoc Behavioural analytics to inform semiconductors
People Berenice Smith Founder of Walk In Our Shoes
Company bio-bean
Company BIOS A leading neural engineering startup, creating the open standard hardware and software interface between the human nervous system and AI
Company Biosceptre
Company Blighter Surveillance Systems
Company Cambioscience
Company Cambridge Epigenetix
Company Cambridge Glycoscience Cambridge Glycoscience specialises in the manufacture of novel functional food ingredients to improve the aesthetic and nutritional quality of manufactured foods
Company Cambridge Graphene Ltd
Company Cambridge InnoVision
Thing Cambridge Launchpad By Form the Future
Company Cambridge Nanotherm
Company Cambridge Nexus
Company Cambridge Picture Company
Company Cambridge Touch Technologies
Thing Check4Cancer Cancer screening as an employee benefit
Thing Undo Capture and replay program execution
People Charlotte Steggall Higher Education Champion
Company Chronomics Chronomics offers personalised epigenetic testing direct to consumers for tracking changing health and wellbeing
People Ciaron Dunne CEO Genie Ventures
Company CMR Surgical Aiming to make minimal access surgery available to all in order to improve patient outcomes and deliver value for healthcare providers
Thing Weightless SIG Collaborating on an open standard IoT technology
Company Community Sparx
Thing Computer assisted dreaming By Futurizon Ltd
Company Congenica
Company CorrosionRADAR CorrosionRADAR strives to be a global leader in remote sensing technologies and advanced analytic systems for smart infrastructures
Company Cydar Using data, cloud computing and AI to improve patient outcomes in image-guided surgery using a ground-breaking surgical guidance system
Company Darktrace
People Darrin Disley Entrepreneur and Angel Investor
Company DefiniGEN
People Dilrini De Silva Research Associate at Bioinformatics at CRUK Cambridge Institute
Thing DNA gene delivery By Avacta Group
Company Dogtooth Technologies
People Dr Chiraz Ennaceur Chiraz is CEO and co-founder of CorrosionRADAR ÔÇô an entrepreneur passionate about innovation, driving new technologies and managing multimillion-pound projects
People Dr Ghina M Halabi
People Dr Karolina Zapadka A highly experienced biotech business developer, biophysical science consultant and physical chemist, Karolina has been appointed to Babraham Research Campus' bio-incubator and life science accelerator, Accelerate@Babraham
Company Dr Ruchi Sharma CEO at Stemnovate
Company Dr Tom Stubbs
Company Drone surveillance By University of Cambridge
People Edmund Kay Member of the Accelerate Program at Judge Business School collaborating with Cardiologists in his project Biophonics
Company Eight19
Thing Elektron Eye Technology
Company Elektron RX
Company Elpis Biomed
People Emily Mackay Emily flourishes when simplifying the complex, and bridging communication challenges between technical and commercial teams. She is currently Head of AI & Data Strategy, Congenica
People Emily Orton Emily has been at the helm of marketing for Darktrace since the companyÔÇÖs start in 2013, taking it all the way to unicorn status
Company Entomics Entomics is developing enabling technology solutions for the growing of insects for the food and feed sector
Company Entopy
Company Enval
Thing Environmental DNA or eDNA By NatureMetrics
Company Equivital
Company Exonate Using VEGF alternative splicing, Exonate is developing eyedrop treatment for Age Related Macular Degeneration
Company Fetch.AI Fetch.ai is looking to combine AI, Machine Learning and Distributed Ledger Technology as a framework for new and emerging types of business interactions
Company FGV Cambridge Nanosystems
Thing Fingerprint drug testing By Intelligent Fingerprinting
Company Five.ai
Company FlexEnable
Thing Flex-grid networking By ROADMap
Company Fluidic Analytics
Company Focal Point Positioning
Thing Food sharing By OLIO
Company Frontier
Company Fstar
Company FutureNova
Company Gearset
Thing Sixfold Gene-editing drugs exclusively for cancer cells
Company Geospock
Thing 'Giving Points' For Cambridge Street Aid - Cambridge.gov
Company Glyconics
Thing GO! Water bottle By Water-to-Go
Company Granta Innovation Vision to use #AI and #medicalimaging to revolutionise cancer diagnosis, Granta Innovation were only founded in 2018 but immediately were named as one of the three winners of CW
People Hannah Stern Entrepreneurial Postdocs of Cambridge
Company Healthera A digital healthcare company that builds pioneering software solutions to solve medical non-adherence, streamline and modernise pharmacy, and relieve pressure on public health
Company Healx
People Heather Richards CEO at Transversal
People Helena Blair Schools Liaison Officer at University of Cambridge, Trinity Hall
Company Herdsy
Company Hummingbird
Thing Hybrid ventilation systems By Breathing Buildings
Thing Invested Investor Increasing success of early stage start-ups by sharing entrepreneurial and investment war stories
Company Inivata
Company Inkle Studios
Company Inky Gibbens Chief Storyteller at Tribalingual
Company IntelliSense.io
Thing Investor-led equity platform By Syndicate Room
Company ip.access
Company Isomerase Therapeutics
People Jack Lomas COO at SenSat
People Jelena Aleksic Healthcare Entrepreneur
People Jeroen Verheyen Co-Founder of Semarion and Majico. Entrepreneurial Postdocs of Cambridge
People Joe Glover Joe is founder of The Marketing MeetUp. He has created his marketing events, grown through communities on Meetup.com, Facebook and LinkedIn that are inclusive, helpful and most importantly - nice
Company Kalium Health
People Kam Pooni CEO at Glyconics
People Kath Austin Founder of BeeBee Wraps
Company KisanHub
Company Kymab
Company Lateral Design
Thing Telensa Leading the global market in connected street lighting and Smart City applications
Company Levin Sources
Company LIFNanoRX
People Lily Cheng Founder of The Rising Network
Company Majico
People Matt Davey Senior Research Associate at University of Cambridge
Company Maxxpal
Company Metrion Biosciences
Company MetroBank
People Michaela Eschbach and Anne Bailey Form The Future
Company Microbiotica
People Mireia Crispin Mireia is a particle physicist interested in interdisciplinary research and the diplomatic dimension of science; currently working on predictive models of cancer treatment at CRUK
Company Mission Therapeutics
Company Morphogen-ix
Thing Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group MR for remote maintenance and repair of aircrafts
Company Mursla A cancer liquid biopsy startup aiming to detect tumours non-invasively during consultation via its quantum biology diagnostics platform and device
Thing Musical AI Jukedeck
People Naily Makangu Project Manager at Featurespace
Thing Impact Women's Network Network united in raising the public visibility of impactful women
Company Ninja Theory
Company Nolojy New startup wanting to help companies 'Picture Your Business'. They intend to offer a web application to let people build meaningful pictures of their organisations and the environments they operate in
Company Nova Extraction
Company OKRA OKRA is an artificial intelligence data analytics company for healthcare. Their consumer-facing machine learning technology won a global start-up challenge at prestigious technology show VivaTech 2018
Thing Ooho the edible water bottle By Skipping Rocks Lab
Company Origami Energy
People Pahini Pandya Founder at Emparity and Research Associate at University of Cambridge
Company Paragraf A novel approach to delivering graphene technologies to the point of use overcoming prior difficulties and with true commercial viability
Company PBD Biotech
Thing Pebal The technology-based intervention that reduces problems during menopause - Cambridge Consultants
Company PervasID
Company PetaGene Developed by an award-winning team from the University of Cambridge, PetaGene software addresses challenges caused by growing volumes of genomics data
Company PharmEnable
Company PhoreMost
Thing Plastic semiconductor nanostructures Developed by Scientists from the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge
Company PneumaCare
Company Poly-ai
Company Posttag
People Prof John Daugman Professor at University of Cambridge
Company PROWLER.io PROWLER.io is developing a new kind of decision-making platform that will see AI make decisions as well as a human
Thing Pyrolysis Process The only method of recycling aluminium laminates - Enval
Company Qkine
Thing Quantum communications Quantum Communications Hub
People Raoul-Gabriel Urma CEO at Cambridge Spark
People Ravi Solanki Co-Founder Primera Impact
Company

Repositive.io

Accelerating personalised cancer treatments to the clinic by connecting biopharma with the right preclinical models to advance their research
Thing Reusable beeswax food wraps BeeBee beeswax wraps came to life because of a real need for a plastic free alternative to cling film and other single-use plastic which use of is unacceptable...and growing
People Rhodri Thomas CEO at Spectral Edge
Company RoboK
Thing Samsung AI Centre
Company Satavia A decision intelligence company making aircraft maintenance and flight operations smarter and more profitable, reducing aviation impact on the climate
Thing Sensors as thin as hair By Sorex Sensors
People Shima Barakat Co-founder and Director of Impact Women's Network
Company Simprints
Thing Pavegen Slabs that convert footsteps into electrical power
Thing Solar Windows By Polysolar
Company Spark EV Technology Preventing range anxiety and providing completed journeys, Spark EV Technology develops cloud-based software for electric vehicle fleets
Company Speechmatics
Thing Speedo On By Cambridge Design Partnership
Company Sphere Fluidics
Company Stemnovate
Company Storm Therapeutics
Thing Strawberry-picking robot With the increasing difficulty of hiring people to do it, Dogtooth Technologies has developed state-of-the-art intelligent robots for soft fruit picking
People Sue Keogh Director at Sookio
Company Sutrue
Thing Synthetic biology for dyeing fabric Colorifix are developing a revolutionary dyeing process to help dramatically reduce the textile industryÔÇÖs environmental impact using a synthetic biology based approach
Company TAB UK LTD
Company Tevva Motors
Thing The FAIMS microchip By Owlstone Medical
People Tian Carey Enterprise Fellow at Royal Academy of Engineering
People Toby Norman Toby is co-founder and CEO of Simprints. He is passionate about bringing cutting edge technology to solve challenges in global health
Thing Transforming the White Board By Kaptivo
Company Tribalingual Tribalingual is on a mission to save rare & endangered languages by teaching them online
Company Tripism
Company Trustonic
Company TTP Ventus
Company TwistDX
Thing Unique self-injectors By Ovalmedical
Company Vaiopak
People Vaiva Kalnikaite CEO at Dovetailed
People Veena Adityan CEO at Smartbell
People Velislava Petrova Postdoctoral Fellow at Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
Thing Venture support programme Helps tech-for-good startups and entrepreneurs innovate and grow by Allia
Company Virtualarts Working on Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality software, Virtual Arts were selected in 2018 as one of Apple's rising stars and want to make immersive experiences available to all
Thing Visual agriculture data management By AGRIinsight
Company VNC Automotive
Company Waterscope
Thing Weightless SIG Looking to develop open standard IoT technology, Weightless SIG is a global non-profit organisation dedicated to connectivity
Company WorldLabs
Company Yagro
Company Zfactor
Company ZifiSense
People Zuzanna Brzosko CEO at Sixfold Bioscience

If you think you should have been on this list, the nominations for #21toWatch 2021 are open until the 15th  January 2020. Complete the form, tell us via 21toWatch@cofinitive.com, or follow @Cofinitive on Twitter and use the #21toWatch.