Dr Peter Tinning and Dr Ralf Bauer form one of the teams who received the Stephen Young Entrepreneurship Award for an Outstanding Business Idea Research Paper, which was presented at the Strathclyde Inspire100 event by Professor Emma Macdonald.
Peter shares his experience of winning the award, and the impact that £75k funding will have.
Congratulations on the win! How did you feel when you heard your name called as a winner of the Stephen Young Outstanding Business Idea Research Paper Award?
I was over the moon! There had been a lot of nervous energy before the Inspire 100 pitch so the relief of getting that done and winning the award was a pretty great combination!
Could you tell me briefly about your company Northern Light Microscopy?
At Northern Light Microscopy we are bringing our 20 years of microscopy development experience to bring to market a solution which aims to democratize advanced optical microscopy methods and hardware.
Our mission is to broaden access to advanced microscopy methods and get them into the hands of the many, not just the few, by removing the main access barriers – cost, space, expertise, and ultimately empower life science users from both academia and industry to make the bio-science discoveries of tomorrow.
Who has been your biggest support or mentor throughout this process, and how have they helped you?
Ralf has honestly been a rock through this commercialisation process. It’s definitely uncharted territory for both of us so having his support has been amazing.
What are the next steps for your business?
This award definitely sets us up for the next steps. Right now, we are looking to finish spinning out of the University in the next few months and getting our systems to market. As part of this process we are getting the best team in place to drive this forward and are currently engaging with potential investors.
How do you plan to utilise the prize funding to further your goals?
This prize funding is going to make such an impact in getting our systems out into the market. We are going to use this fund to develop customer ready demonstration systems and carry out in person system trials with some potential early adopters in biotech and core facilities.
What advice would you give to other aspiring entrepreneurs who might be considering entering Inspire100 or applying for the SY Research Paper Award in the future?
It's never too early to start engaging with Strathclyde Inspire and their commercialisation team. We are really lucky at Strathclyde to have this level of support and if you want to see if your research has commercial potential then they should be your first contact.