- Aimed at: Entrepreneurial projects
- Located in:
United Kingdom
Requirements
To be eligible to apply for the University category your business must:
- Be innovative and/or offer a solution which has potential to disrupt the market and which is scalable.
- Be linked to a UK university - at least one team member must be a current student or employee, a graduate of the last five years (since 2019), a university employee, or an entrepreneur from a university incubator, accelerator or spin-out company.
- Be preparing to go to market.
- Have a team of two people or more and/or have a plan in place to form a team. For solo founders additional team member can include advisors, board members and/or full/part-time staff including voluntary roles.
- Have a minimum viable product (MVP).
You can only apply for the programme once, even if you have a number of businesses and/or separate businesses which match the criteria for both the University and Startup Categories.
Please note there are two stages to the application process. If you are successful in the first stage you will be asked to complete a further application form where you will be asked additional information about your business. Please refer to the T&Cs for further information.
General information
The Santander X UK Awards is Santander's annual entrepreneurship competition for emerging businesses. To date, the programme has supported thousands of early-stage entrepreneurs and provided more than £1,000,000 in equity-free funding to start-ups and small businesses.
Three winners in the University category will receive up to £15,000 funding and go forward to represent the UK in the Santander X Global Award, the bank's international early-stage entrepreneurship competition. In the Global Award you'll compete against entrepreneurs from countries across Europe and Latin America to win additional cash prizes, international exposure and more!
Do you have what it takes to go up against the best University start-ups worldwide?
50 businesses in the University category will be shortlisted in September. If selected you'll have the opportunity to join a series of expert-led online pitch workshops and receive group and 1:1 pitch coaching.
All shortlisted businesses will pitch virtually through a series of heats to select 15 semi-finalists who will pitch in-person at Unity Place, Santander's new HQ in Milton Keynes, to decide the six finalists.
Make it to the final six businesses in the University category and you'll get the chance to pitch live to a high-profile judging panel including Mike Regnier, Santander UK Chief Executive, and Sanatander UK Chairman, William Vereker, at the National Final on 14 November.
Reward
Successful winners and finalists will receive the following cash prizes:
· 1st place: £15,000
· 2nd place: £10,000
· 3rd place: £5,000
· 4th–6th place: £2,500
Winners will also receive a package of business support.
Call guidelines
Collaborators
Call stages
Contact to make enquiries about this call
To resolve queries about this call, you can contact the manager of the call by writing to:
santander.universities@santander.co.uk
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