Cambridge Tech Week has firmly earned its place as a must-attend moment for the UK innovation community. In the latest Cambridge Tech Podcast, hosts Faye Holland and James Parton are joined by Cambridge Angels Emmi Nicholl to reflect on a packed week of founder conversations, investor insight and the big questions shaping the sector.

The Week retained its distinctive Cambridge energy: busy, organic and full of chance encounters. Alongside familiar faces were new connections across manufacturing, defence, security and international innovation ecosystems.

Innovation Alley was once again a phenomenal success with one founder describing the session with Cambridge Angels “the most productive 25 minutes they had spent all year”.

The Cambridge x Manchester Partnership offered tangible evidence of cross-cluster momentum, with four joint investments already spanning therapeutics, technology and life sciences. The lesson for founders is that regional networks are becoming increasingly connected, and a broader investor base may be closer than it appears.

One of the week’s most compelling discussions examined the increasingly blurred boundary between civilian and military technology. The debate did not offer easy answers, but it made the need for active governance impossible to ignore.

For technologists, the challenge is not only what can be built, but what should be built, and how companies set ethical boundaries as dual-use applications emerge.

During the rest of 2026, #CamTechPod will be covering some of the key sessions from #CamTechWeek so subscribe on all major podcast platforms or visit cambridgetechpodcast.com to hear more of the conversation.

Headline sponsor Holden Polestar

Produced by Cambridge TV

#CamTechPod

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10 Years of the Maxwell Centre: Where Cambridge's Deep Tech Future Is Being Built

James heads to the Maxwell Centre at the University of Cambridge to mark its first decade, sitting down with four remarkable people who between them span the full arc from foundational physics research to frontier AI startups. If you want to understand how Cambridge actually turns brilliant science into world-changing companies, this is the episode to listen to.

The Maxwell Centre opened in 2016 as a deliberate act of disruption: a place where academics, industry partners and entrepreneurs could work side by side without walls or barriers. A decade later, it has become one of the most quietly influential spaces in the UK innovation landscape.

We hear from:

Professor Sir Richard Friend FRS FREng, Founding Director, Maxwell Centre

Professor George Malliaras FRS, Prince Philip Professor of Technology and Director, Institute for Biomedical Innovation (IBI)

Loubna Bouarfa, Founder, FactTrace,

Sterlina Smith, Global Lead for AI and Society, SAS, and

Dr Aga Iwasiewicz-Wabnig, Director, Maxwell Centre

"You're never going to run out of good challenges to tackle. And if you're in a place like Cambridge where other people are doing their 150% to tackle the problem they're passionate about, it's just impossible to stand still." 

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

Headline sponsor Holden Polestar

Produced by Cambridge TV

#CamTechPod

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cambridge Tech Podcast Weekly News Drop - 11 Sept 2026.

The weekly Tech news roundup from in and around the Cambridge Tech cluster. Featuring Quantinuum, OutSee, Innovate UK, Empirical Ventures, Pragmatic Semiconductor, Doctor Paul James, Frontier Developments, Disney, Cambridge Science Park, Cambridge Tech Week, Maxwell Centre.

#CamTechPod

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This week we sat down with Jonathan Benton, Founder and CEO of iSanctuary, and it is one of the most remarkable founder stories we have heard.

In the episode we cover:

• Why crypto fraud has reached epidemic scale and why only 0.1% of cases ever reach prosecution
• How REKTify works and the world-first legal cases that proved it
• The plan to automate at massive scale and become the blockchain equivalent of the banking system's fraud marker infrastructure
• What 30 years of public service actually teaches you about building a company

"If you've done 25 years of public service, it never really leaves your blood."

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The weekly Tech news roundup from in and around the Cambridge Tech cluster. Featuring Pragmatic Semiconductor, Mission Therapeutics and NeuraLight.

#CamTechPod #CambridgeTechWeek #technology #venturecapital #deeptech #semiconductor #biotechnology

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We sat down with Amelia Armour, Partner at Amadeus Capital Partners, for one of the most insightful conversations we've had about the state of UK deep tech investment, and the mood is genuinely optimistic.

The headlines? The UK's first half of 2026 has been the strongest for venture since 2022, with $17 billion flowing into UK-backed companies. Cambridge unicorns are arriving with real momentum. And the long-standing complaint about scale-up capital? It's finally being addressed.

Amelia covers a lot of ground in this one:

• Why the value in AI has shifted deep into the stack — and what that means for founders
• The pension fund revolution that could transform UK venture over the next decade
• Why Playground Global setting up in the UK is such a significant signal
• The non-dilutive funding strategies that are quietly changing the runway equation for early-stage companies
• What Amadeus actually looks for when deal flow is at record levels — and how to cut through

Whether you're raising, building, or investing, this is essential listening.

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

Headline sponsor Holden Polestar

Produced by Cambridge TV

#CamTechPod

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's Cambridge Tech Pod Weekly News Drop is live 🎙️

Hear updates from Arm, IBM, and Cambridge Tech Week.

Tune in on Tuesday for our interview with Amelia Armour of Amadeus Capital Partners.

Headline sponsor Holden Group Polestar

Produced by Cambridge TV

#CamTechPod

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

#CamTechPod

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's Cambridge Tech Pod Weekly News Drop is live 🎙️

Hear updates from Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre, Qureight, Flit, Mantle Space and TR Property Investment Trust.

And next Tuesday - tune in for a preview of the pitching companies at next month’s Cambridge Tech Week.

Headline sponsor Holden Group Polestar

Produced by Cambridge TV

#CamTechPod

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.