Glasgow Venture Labs
Turning Glasgow Into The UK's Student Startup Capital
Turning Glasgow Into The UK's Student Startup Capital
Glasgow Venture Labs is a student-led initiative aiming to make Glasgow the UK’s leading destination for student-founded tech startups.
But first we need to tackle two key issues:
We aim to do this by building cohort based communities centred around shared inspiration and aspiration to build impactful startups.
We're running two cohorts this year.
Oct 24 - Jan 25, University of Glasgow Students Only.
In our pilot program we'll teach students to design and validate startup ideas. It will culminate in January with a hackathon and live pitch night.
Jun 25 - Aug 25, open to all students.
Next summer we'll run an incubator to help students build their ideas. We're raising a round to offer equity-free funding and accelerate development.
Glasgow Venture Labs will deliver a 4 month student startup cohort. Each month has a distinct theme taking students from nothing to a robust + validated startup idea. Live events, case studies, and mentors support practical, hands-on learning at every step.
Raise awareness through talks at Welcome Week lectures.
27th Sep launch event: panel talk and afterparty.
This month focuses on building community, making friends, and showing that startups are a viable career option.
Workshop introducing design-oriented principles and outlining a structured process for brainstorming.
Regular brainstorming sessions supported by prompts and questions to get students thinking about solving real problems.
Team formation based on shared interests and goals.
Workshop on methods to quickly and effectively validate a startup idea.
Focus on marker research, feasibility studies, and iterative customer feedback.
Teams should finalise an idea and build an initial customer waiting list.
Do things that don't scale.
Business planning workshop covering go-to-marker strategy, revenue models etc.
Focus on continued customer feedback. How to build a model that works for the customer and the team?
Mentor office-hours to gather vital feedback.
Organised events stop Friday 6th December for exams.
We'll organise a 2-day hackathon in partnership with strategic players in the Scottish entrepreneurial ecosystem.
This event is open to all:
Judging panel will shortlist teams to present their pitch.
The best pitch will be awarded automatic entry to the summer incubator program.
Other shortlisted teams will receive further interviews from organisers.
This round will select teams that have a well-developed idea with the potential to do well in the incubator.
The Validate cohort will now have concluded. However, we'll open a second round of incubator spots for:
This application route is talent-based. Some people may not have had a good idea for the first cohort, but might demonstrate excellent abilities that will help another team build their ideas.
Join us in our goal to make Glasgow the UK's leading destination for student-founded tech startups.
If you're interested and want to learn more, please get in touch.
You can help us launch the validate cohort by: