Vellos (meaning arrow in Greek) is based in Cambridge UK, one of the world’s largest innovation clusters. This is where academic science commands attention and companies thrive around it. Whilst we may be based in the UK, the Vellos mission is global.
At Vellos, we believe the future rests on scientists, engineers and clinicians with entrepreneurial thinking. It depends on disruptive, out-of-the-box thinking that drives global impact. Our mission is to galvanise the next generation of company founders, giving them the tools to visualise new frontiers, and the support necessary to realise their vision.
To build a better future, we need to act like an arrow, with purpose, speed and impactful accuracy. At Vellos, we instil an entrepreneurial purpose through training programmes, we help founders aggressively pursue their goals through our venture partners, and we support the formation of impactful life-changing companies.
We believe in people and impact.
Founding Team
Sir Tony Kouzarides
Founder / CEO
Tony is Professor of Cancer Biology at the University of Cambridge. His research laboratory at the Gurdon Institute investigates epigenetic pathways and their role in cancer. He is a pioneer in this field and one of the most successful scientists in the world (Ioannidis et al, Plos Biology, 2019). Through his research a drug is currently in clinical trials against cancer.
Tony is the director and co-founder of the Milner Therapeutics Institute at the University of Cambridge, and the founder and director of Cambridge Gravity. A serial entrepreneur, Tony is a co-founder of Abcam plc, a research reagents company, and two drug discovery companies, Chroma Therapeutics and STORM Therapeutics, He is the founder of a cancer charity in Spain called Conquer Cancer (Vencer el Cancer) which raises funds for cancer research.
Steph Avraamides
Founder / COO
Steph’s passion for accelerating the impact of science sparked her pivot from biomedical research to translation. Driven to amplifying entrepreneurial talent and increase the quantity of high-quality startups, Steph has founded / run entrepreneurial organisations and programmes that have contributed to the education of 1000+ scientists, engineers and clinicians.
With experiences spanning startup support, mentorship, advisory, consultancy, and venture capital, and uniting missions, Steph and Tony joined forces and Vellos was born.
