At Vellos Ventures, we actively identify and build companies. The Vellos venture building process provides the ingredients for successful venture formation, including: seasoned entrepreneurial drivers, operational, research and clinical expertise, team building, industry connections and incubation space.
For research hubs, we work at a systems level to provide leading entrepreneurial expertise to industry, academia and whole ecosystems (at regional or country level), facilitating the flourishing of their entrepreneurial potential.
For our industrial partners we work to enhance intrapreneurially capabilities and assess needs to scout the best minds to become employees, Vellos fellows or consultants.
For talent, we provide opportunities to understand and experience translation and industry while they are researching, through educational programmes, fellowships and expert consulting positions, as well as finding them full-time positions.
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We are based in Cambridge UK, drawing on the expertise of one of the world’s largest Life Sciences Clusters, with global reach. Our mission is forged through experience in the cutting-edge, world renowned, University of Cambridge.
The founders and executives of Vellos, Professor Tony Kouzarides and Steph Avraamides, are part of three pioneering Cambridge organisations that centre around entrepreneurship and academia-industry connections: Professor Kouzarides is the Founder and Director of the Milner Therapeutics Institute and Cambridge Gravity, while Steph Avraamides is the Founder and Managing Director of Nucleate Cambridge and Science Innovation Strategist of Cambridge Gravity. These organisations provide the inspiration and the paradigm for the activities of Vellos.
The Milner Therapeutics Institute has a mission to deliver better therapies by connecting academia with industry. It houses and supports a bio-incubator of early start-ups, has research capabilities in functional genomics and Artificial Intelligence and coordinates a 14 pharma company consortium that funds research in Cambridge.
The Bio-spark programme within Cambridge Gravity provides support for translational and entrepreneurial researchers, as well as fellowships at pharma, biotech and venture capital firms. The Nucleate programmes, forming part of the world's largest community of bio-innovators, focuses on entrepreneurial education and company formation: facilitating mentorship, idea development and funding.
The collective expertise of Vellos founders and the experts they partner with, spanning academic research, company building, clinician knowledge, investment, and industry, brings a wealth of experience to Vellos across the innovation landscape.
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 increase the quantity of high-quality startups, Steph co-founded and directs the Cambridge arm of the world’s largest network of bio-innovators, which has accelerated 280+ biotech teams globally over the last two years, including 30+ in the UK's Golden Triangle. To amplify emerging entrepreneurial talent, Steph organised several pre-accelerator programs with 150-300 annual participants.
With experiences spanning startup mentorship, advisory, consultancy, and venture capital, Steph recognised the importance of community building locally, founding biotech societies in Cambridge and London, nationally on the SynBioUK Representative Committee, and internationally with the Bits in Bio, iGEM, and Nucleate communities. After Tony and Steph joined forces for Cambridge Gravity, Vellos was born.
