Cambridge Tech Week's pitch competition is back, and this year's shortlist might be the strongest yet. James and Faye sit down with four of the five finalists ahead of their head-to-head on the main stage of the Cambridge Corn Exchange on 16 September 2026. It's a special, quick episode, a reunion of sorts: four of the five companies have featured on the podcast before, many as #21toWatch winners. The fifth - an Edinburgh-based AI company - proves that Cambridge Tech Week's reach now stretches well beyond the city.

This episode introduces the finalists:

• Phil Spence, HotHouse Therapeutics (Norwich) - engineering plants to produce entirely new-to-nature vaccine adjuvants. Their target? Replacing QS-21 - with a scalable, less toxic, bioengineered alternative of similar efficacy.
• Dr Monica Saavedra's, Lambda agri (Cambridge) - an additive embedded into greenhouse paint and polytunnel sheeting that converts damaging UV light into red light, boosting photosynthesis and delivering up to 20% more yield per crop.
• Sam Kamali, Myonerv (Cambridge) not present on recording - a wearable medical device, to monitor and treat stroke induced paralysis, allowing stroke patients suffering from upper limb paralysis, to regain real-time control of their hand.
• Ruben Ruiz-Mateos Serrano, Polytecks (Cambridge) - a novel conducting polymer woven into e-textile electrode arrays that map the body's electrical activity in high-density detail - their first product, stages the most common cardiac disease in dogs.
• George Arden, Xplore Intelligence (Edinburgh) - simulates real operational environments to train and benchmark entire AI agent systems - catching hallucinations and errors before they reach users in regulated sectors like MedTech and logistics.

Why Are They Competing?

The answer is consistent across all finalists: it's not just about the prize money.

• Fundraising momentum - multiple founders are mid-round and treating the stage as a high-quality investor touchpoint
• Ecosystem reach - Cambridge Tech Week draws a global audience; and creates a deliberate bridge across the UK deep tech community

The live final is sponsored by Mills & Reeve, and joined by PwC, and Julius & Clark. Judging on the day: Zickie Lim (Partner & Head of VC & Investments, Mills & Reeve), Marilena Ioannidou (British Business Bank), Richard Lewis (Foresight Group), and Emmi Nicholl (Cambridge Angels).

Two prizes are up for grabs: Judges' Award and People's Choice Award.

Be there in person: Wednesday 16 September, Cambridge Corn Exchange. Tickets at cambridgetechweek.co.uk

Subscribe on all major podcast platforms or visit cambridgetechpodcast.com.

Headline sponsor Holden Polestar

Produced by Cambridge TV

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