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Inspiring Innovators

 

We inspire, mentor and partner with entrepreneurs 

Our quest is to galvanise the next generation of company founders to tackle civilisationally important problems. Vellos and Fifty Years have joined forces to give scientists and engineers the tools to make this happen. Our mission is delivered through the PRIMED entrepreneurial organisation and the 5050 a company formation programme.

PRIMED

A UK-wide organisation, PRIMED inspires researchers  to set up transformational deep tech companies. PRIMED is driven by committees of PhDs and Postdocs, that bring together the entrepreneurial communities in a given city. They disseminate inspiration, by organising events with role models, through brainstorming around company formation, and by building a community that strives to understand the process of impactful company formation.

PRIMED committees will be operational from September 2025 in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh. If you would like to be in contact with the committee and hear about events, please stay tuned for announcements on where to register. 

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5050

A UK-wide company formation programme, 5050 is a 14-week course, designed to support PhDs, postdocs and MEngs ready to become founders, whether they are actively building or still exploring early ideas. Two cohorts of 50 early career scientists and engineers are trained each year. This is an out of hours programme, designed to answer the following questions:

  • What company should I build?
  • How do I turn breakthrough ideas / science into a startup?
  • How do I become the greatest founder possible?

The 5050 programme is run in collaboration with the Vellos team, taught by Fifty Years, and powered by UK government's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA). 5050-UK is based on a successful 5050-US programme run by Fifty Years, which has resulted in more that 70 companies and trained over 300 founders. Learn more here

The next 5050-UK cohort starts in October. Applications are open here.

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Fifty Years 

Fifty Years investment firm, based in a San Francisco, partners with deep tech companies solving civilisationally important problems. The Fifty Years team has backed over 100 deep tech startups from the earliest days and helped them raise over $4.5B.

 

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