#21 to Watch Launches 2027 Search for East of England’s Next-Gen Innovators

The search is on for the next generation of game-changing founders, pioneering companies and breakthrough innovations as #21toWatch opens the nominations window for its prestigious 2027 awards.

Run by Cambridge Management Consulting, #21toWatch has a proven track record of spotlighting emerging talent and technologies from Cambridge and across the East of England – ventures with the potential to translate ambitious ideas into meaningful commercial and societal impact.

Submissions typically span all areas of cutting-edge emerging innovation including artificial intelligence, deep tech, medtech, life sciences, biotechnology and climate technology.

Some of the exciting entries already received for 2027 are as follows:

In the ‘People’ category, biochemist, Dr Irina Gostimskaya, co-founder and CEO of Cambridge Molecular Computers, is a leading authority on reading, writing, and editing DNA. With her team at Cambridge Molecular Computers, she is building an alternative computing platform beyond silicon, using the programmability of DNA to solve previously intractable problems. Trading space for time, a DNA computer enables a desktop machine to outperform the world’s current fastest supercomputer, while consuming only a fraction of the energy.

In the ‘Company’ category, pioneering femtech startup, Avline Health is building a pioneering intelligent clinical decision-support platform that combines individual patient risk assessment with evidence-informed treatment recommendations for genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM) after breast cancer. Combining vaginal microbiome sequencing, treatment history and longitudinal health data, Avline Health aims to provide clinicians with an objective severity score and a contraindication-aware treatment match, instead of a guess.

CEO and co-founder, Dr. Josiane Chuisseu told us: “Vaginal microbiome testing does already exist – but nobody’s built it for oncology before, and it’s very much needed. Up to 70% of breast cancer survivors develop genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM), a chronic and progressive condition caused by a drop in oestrogen levels – but it’s chronically underdiagnosed because assessment still relies on subjective exams, and undertreated because clinicians are often too cautious to prescribe hormone therapy in cancer patients even when it’s now shown to be safe.

“As a result, two-thirds of women get the wrong diagnosis, and the treatments they do get are only effective less than 20% of the time.

Meanwhile, in the ‘Things’ category, Metcycle is developing a scalable, energy-efficient technology to transform lithium-ion battery black mass into high-value critical materials. By addressing the industry’s key separation bottleneck, Metcycle aims to reduce reliance on energy-intensive and chemical-heavy recycling routes, enabling more economical recovery of battery metals while strengthening Europe’s domestic supply of critical raw materials.

The 2027 #21toWatch campaign follows a year of incredible innovation across the region, with last year’s winning cohort continuing to make significant progress across investment, commercialisation and innovation:

2026 #21toWatch winner, Memorify has launched its Yoree memory platform following an oversubscribed £420k pre-seed investment round and a waitlist of more than 5,000 prospective users. Elsewhere, fellow winner, Loop52 has been selected for a share of a £2.7m Government-backed automotive innovation funding programme while another 2026 winner, Myonerv has won a £100k Innovate UK grant to advance clinical testing of its wearable stroke-rehabilitation technology, and 2026 winner, Cyclana Bio, which aims to find a cure for endometriosis, has secured approval for a 500-patient clinical study.

Tim Passingham, founder and executive chairman of Cambridge Management Consulting, said: “Together, these achievements demonstrate the breadth of progress being made by the #21toWatch community, from attracting investment and bringing products to market to advancing clinical research and developing technologies with significant industrial potential.

“#21toWatch is all about the importance of identifying promising innovators early and helping them gain the recognition and connections needed to scale. However, we are delighted that the impact of #21toWatch extends well beyond the awards.”

Collectively, past winners have now raised more than £1billion, underlining the scale of the technical ambition among the ventures, and the importance of bringing such innovators to the attention of investors, customers and the wider business community.

The #21toWatch shortlist – judged by a panel of independent judges – will be announced on 3 February 2027, with the final Top21, selected across three categories: People, Companies and Things, unveiled at an awards ceremony at Pembroke College, Cambridge, on 11 March 2027.

Founders, companies and innovators can submit their own nominations through the #21toWatch website at https://www.21towatch.com/. Deadline for entries is 8 January 2027.

Nominations are also invited from investors, universities and others across the innovation ecosystem. The judging process considers innovation, the challenge being addressed, influence, viability and memorability.

Marks & Clerk returns as a premium sponsor of the 2027 #21toWatch campaign.

Matthew Pinney, Office Managing Partner, Marks & Clerk Cambridge, said: “Cambridge has an extraordinary depth of entrepreneurial talent, and #21toWatch provides a valuable platform for recognising those innovators turning ambitious ideas into businesses with real commercial potential. We look forward to meeting this year’s cohort, learning more about their ambitions, and helping them protect and maximise the value of their innovations through intellectual property as they contribute to the region’s continuing success as a centre for innovation.”

Further sponsors and the full judging panel will be announced shortly.

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Carole Aye Maung, PR & Media Relations Manager: cayemaung@cambridgemc.com