The inaugural Innovation Festival ended on a high at the Nancy Rothwell Building, where five ventures went head to head in the Coller AI Competition final, pitching live for a £100,000 equity investment from the Jeremy Coller Foundation.
LanthaGen Bio Ltd won with an AI platform that designs metal-capturing proteins computationally, helping recover valuable metals from electronic waste and onshore the UK’s critical-mineral supply. CTO and co-founder Dan Healy led the pitch, and accepted the award alongside CSO Ellie Goulding, which was presented by Investment Principal Harry Kalms.
Nearby, Prime Minister Andy Burnham addressed a local summit, calling for the UK to become the world’s leading “innovation nation” and praising the University’s role in Manchester’s innovation story. Organisers confirmed the festival returns 1–5 November 2027.
Amid the buzz of the Nancy Rothwell Building, five finalist ventures pitched live for a £100k investment at the Coller AI Competition final today. Each team applies AI to a different social challenge: LanthaGen Bio Ltd pitched their platform for combining biomolecules and machine-learning modelling to identify candidates for selectively recovering valuable metals from electronic waste—‘urban mines’—and help onshore the UK’s critical-mineral supply. SenseVale pitched smart glasses that help blind and partially sighted users navigate more independently.
Spore Sense pitched an AI-enabled system that reduces pesticide use by detecting crop disease before symptoms appear. Health Equity Chain pitched a treatment analyser that helps prostate cancer patients understand where they stand among people like them. Finally, Forkprint pitched models that analyse food business data to track greenhouse gas emissions and develop lower-carbon recipes.
LanthaGen Bio Ltd wins, turning electronic waste into a UK mineral supply
LanthaGen Bio took home the prize—presented by Investment Principal Harry Kalms from the Jeremy Coller Foundation—securing the six-figure equity investment for its AI platform that simulates how proteins and peptides bind metals, allowing new metal-capturing proteins to be designed computationally rather than found by trial and error. The approach drastically shortens development while cutting the energy, chemicals, plastic and solvent waste of repeated screening — supporting UK efforts to recover valuable metals from electronic waste and onshore critical-mineral supply. CTO and co-founder Dan Healy led the pitch, with Healy and CSO and co-founder Ellie Goulding accepting the award. The prize adds to £2.4 million in grant funding already secured, allowing their six-person team to build sustainably towards future development.
“We were pitching against the best of the best, which makes it just so exciting—it feels amazing,” Healy shared, adding encouragement for others who might be dreaming of a venture in the future, “Your idea doesn’t have to be perfect… we really believed in this and it had some scientific integrity behind it. You really just go from that.”
“The three co-founders at LanthaGen Bio each bring their own set of skills… they have such a positive, candid attitude. They’ve faced stumbling blocks, they’ve pivoted their thinking, but they are willing to talk to everybody, to absorb the information, and to work out which advice to listen to.” — Aline Miller, Associate Vice-President (Enterprise), University of Manchester
A week that showcased Manchester’s role in building an Innovation Nation
As the University’s inaugural Innovation Week closed, Prime Minister Andy Burnham called for the UK to become the world’s leading “innovation nation” at a local summit, praising the University’s role in Manchester’s innovation story. Friday wraps five days of activity, with the festival hosting more than 25 events across 17 venues, including 116 speakers, 21 new ideas pitched, and over 3,000 registrations. For the University of Manchester’s President and Vice-Chancellor Duncan Ivison, the week capped 18 months of work: “We’ve created a new innovation agency, set up a first ever £10M Founders Fund, and launched an innovation hub on Oxford Road… I think the festival sends a big message that innovation is a huge part of our future.” As the week came to a close, organisers, confirmed the event will return next year, 1–5 November 2027.
“The University of Manchester is a public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester City Centre on Oxford Road.”
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