Prashant Shah co-hosts this week’s episode with Faye Holland talking all things CWOW - and it's going to be a big one.

CWOW runs from 11th–19th June 2026, bringing together the life sciences community across Oxford, London and Cambridge for a week packed with pitches, open days, panels, and networking.

Here's a snapshot of what we talked about:

🚀 Ventures Tours (Oxford → London → Cambridge) Kicking off on 11th June in Oxford, the Ventures Tour moves through London (12th) before landing in Cambridge for two full days (15th–16th). Investor showcases and networking sessions with the likes of Oxford Science Enterprises, KQ Labs at the Francis Crick Institute, Cambridge Innovation Capital, Amadeus Capital Partners, Cambridge Angels, and many more – all showcasing their most inspiring startups and entrepreneurs.

🏢 Cambridge Wide Open Day - 17th June The centrepiece of the week. Tours, company showcases, masterclasses, and a party - all in one day. A brilliant way to see the Cambridge life sciences ecosystem in action. If you want to be part of the car pool with #CamTechPod then let us know!

🧬 TechBio, Biotech & Pharma Day - 18th June BIA TechBio X at AstraZeneca's Discovery Centre, plus the AZ Exchange celebrating collaboration across the UK Life Sciences ecosystem.

Big shout out to Ajit Guller and Francois Meullenet and the o2h team, and sponsors Donna Ardeman, Mills & Reeve, Jonathan Goodacre, Keltie, and so many more sponsors, supporters and partners.

Tune in to hear the full conversation on the Cambridge Tech Podcast - available on all major platforms.

Headline sponsor Holden Polestar

Produced by Cambridge TV

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In this week's episode, hosts Faye Holland and James Parton dive deep into the region's thriving FinTech ecosystem with Tim Robinson, CEO of Tech East, and Antony Bellingall, co-founder of Norwich-based compliance software company Idenfo. What emerges is a compelling story about regional tech excellence, female founder leadership, and why London's dominance in FinTech might be masking some genuinely impressive talent elsewhere.

What makes this particularly interesting is that Norwich wasn't even mentioned in the government's 2021 Khalifa review of UK FinTech - despite financial services accounting for one of the highest proportions of GVA in the city's economy. The oversight was glaring.

But there's something special happening across the East of England:

• Female founder leadership: Outside London, Norfolk has the highest proportion of female tech founders in the UK
• Strong role models: From university leadership to corporate executives, visible female pioneers are normalising entrepreneurship
• Supportive ecosystem: Professional services, legal support, and university partnerships create a genuine community

The Idenfo Story: Global Ambitions, Local Roots

Antony Bellingall's journey perfectly encapsulates why the region works. After stints in Japan and Singapore building compliance expertise, he returned to Norwich to launch Idenfo in 2019. Today, they have 2,000 customers across 15 countries.

The collaboration with the University of East Anglia on hologram detection systems for identity cards shows how academic partnerships can drive real product innovation.

What's Next?

Tech East has just launched FinTechEast.com and is planning a major push to connect FinTech businesses across the entire region - Cambridge, Norwich, Ipswich, and beyond. Rather than competing with London, the strategy is smarter: build a distributed network of smaller hubs that collectively punch well above their weight.

Tim Robinson will be speaking at London Tech Week 2026 on Regional Tech Ecosystems, bringing the East's story to the capital.

Listen to the full episode on the Cambridge Tech Podcast and discover why this region deserves a place on every tech investor's radar.

Headline sponsor Holden Polestar

#CamTechPod

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When Debbie Toms met Chad Edwards at a casual barbecue in early 2024, neither of them could have predicted what would unfold. Two years on, CuspAI has raised over $130 million, assembled a world-class team across Europe, and is tackling some of humanity's most pressing challenges through AI driven materials discovery. It's the kind of origin story that makes you question whether you've been to the right barbecues lately.

What makes Debs' journey particularly compelling is her transition from structured corporate roles. Nine years at Deloitte, eight at Marshall Aerospace, to the controlled chaos of an early-stage deep tech startup. Her insight?

"You have to get very comfortable very quickly with just not knowing all the answers."

The company itself represents a genuine breakthrough. CuspAI has built an agentic platform that models material properties with extraordinary speed. Where traditional materials discovery involves years of laboratory work with a mere 6% success rate, CuspAI can deliver equivalent results in 45 minutes with a projected 90% success rate.

Key Milestones in Two Years

· Company incorporated March 2024

· Seed round closed June 2024

· First platform version live January 2025

· Series A raised over $100 million

· Team grown to 55 employees with contracts signed for more across UK, Amsterdam, Berlin, and London

CuspAI isn't building technology for technology's sake. Their partnerships focus on genuinely transformative applications, for example:

· Carbon capture through direct air capture (DAC) projects with Meta

· Forever chemicals removal from water in partnership with Khmera, a NASDAQ-listed Finnish company

· Next-generation batteries and semiconductors addressing real infrastructure challenges

As Debs notes, there's genuine purpose embedded in the work: "The loveliest thing about that project is our lead chemist working on that project was pregnant at the time and is really aware that this is something that is impacting human life."

What's Next?

CuspAI is expanding aggressively into Asia-Pacific with a Singapore office and partnership already in motion. They're announcing new talent hires and partnership deals over the coming months, with an ambitious goal to deliver best-in-class materials by year-end.

For founders and investors, CuspAI's story offers several lessons: the importance of mission-driven teams, the power of combining deep technical expertise (Max Welling's world-leading AI research) with commercial acumen (Chad Edwards' background), and the value of building based on what customers actually need.

Listen to the full episode to hear Debs discuss the mental health implications of AI tools, why Cambridge needs to do more for AI talent, and how she maintains culture whilst scaling at breakneck speed.

Headline sponsor Holden Polestar

#CamTechPod

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.