Come with us on the annual Venture Crawl 2024

After some networking over lunch and refreshments at Gate One, the group moved on to somerset house to visit Makerversity, a pioneering community and professional maker space with over 350 individuals working out of its cutting-edge creative studios. Makerversity builds and supports communities of the most exciting maker businesses. From designers to hackers, engineers to wearable technologists, makers to inventors, Makerversity provide space, people and support to help develop your creative practice.

Upon arrival at Makerversity, the group were taken on a tour of the building and got to experience the amazing facilities first-hand. This included its various workshop areas, digital workspaces and fashion studios. Following on from the tour, the group were then introduced to 2 Makerversity residents who also happened to be LCF Alumni themselves. This included designer and maker Savvas Alexander and founder and creative director of CQ Studio Cassie Quinn. Savvas and Cassie both gave insightful talks as they delved into the ideas behind their brands and the critical challenges they have faced along the way. Savvas explained his aim of rethinking the systems within fashion by designing closer to the heart of manufacture whilst also giving us a peep behind the curtain at some of the exciting things he has been working on recently. These included a short film called ‘Ellipses’ showcasing his groundbreaking debut collection that ‘explores circular scenarios across the city’, as well as some of the pieces from the collection itself.  It’s clear that the experience at Makerversity captured the imagination of a lot of the crawlers as some of them went on to state it as a huge source of inspiration for them from the day.

"This experience has given me a lot of ideas, especially at the Makerversity. I'm very grateful for the whole opportunity. I have a brand and one of the things that I want to do with my brand is to make it circular, so it's amazing to meet people that are doing exactly what I want to be doing. I think this whole experience has made us a lot more empowered to do what we want. Thank you!" - Margarita Ivanova - MA Fashion Futures

After the talks at Makerversity concluded, the group moved just round the corner to Soho House for the final business of the day in leading global entertainment agency William Morris Endeavour (WME). Named one of the Fast Company’s Most Innovative organisations, WME represents artists and athletes across books, sports, digital media, film, food, fashion, music, television and theatre. After a brief walk through the historic hallways of Soho house to the space taken up by WME, the group were ran through a typical day at WME which you may have guessed… is never typical! With such an exciting, multifaceted organisation, it was clear that no 2 days were ever going to be the same, which is certainly something that peaked the interests of the Venture Crawlers.

The group heard about WME’s fast paced culture and the amazing opportunities to work with world famous talent in a challenging but truly rewarding working environment. One of the most fascinating aspects of the talk with WME was the deep dive into everything that goes into a shoot when working with talent and just how resilient the WME agents have to be at times that require them to think on their feet. With so many amazing opportunities to learn and develop personally and professionally, it was certainly an auspicious note to end the Venture Crawl on. And it was clear the group were enthused by what they had heard as they stuck around in large numbers to network with the WME agents.

"It was really amazing because we were with a lot of other people from the same university, but we had not yet had a chance to meet them. I now know who to go to after graduation to learn new things and explore areas to improve my designs and make them, so it was a great experience to come here and explore new opportunities." - Aditya Shrimali - MA Fashion Entrepreneurship and Innovation

To conclude, there was just the small matter of a pitch off hosted at Kings College, Bush House against the 20+ other universities taking part in the crawl, each represented by their dazzling pitching champions…

The representative from each participating university took to the stage to present their startup idea in just 90 seconds to the judges as well as a packed-out theatre of attendees. The judging panel would then decide who had presented the best idea and determine who would take home the title of ‘Venture Crawl pitch off champion’ for their respective University. One thing that was clear to see throughout was the sheer quality and enthusiasm on display in all of the pitches. And whilst LCF were not crowned the winners on the day, the pitching champions representing LCF made history as it was the first time more than 1 pitching champion had represented a university at the pitch off since the Venture Crawls launch back in 2017. And much like the other pitching champions, they delivered a truly masterful pitch, captivating the audience and judges with their cohesive delivery and ideas behind creating environmental change within the UK.

‘It was breathtaking doing the pitch in front of such a huge auditorium, but also thrilling and stimulating. Also, quite humbling to be representing LCF! Definitely not an experience to be forgotten!’ – Joint statement from LCF’s 3 pitching champions – Margarita Ivanova - MA Fashion Futures, Christianne Lozano - MA Fashion Entrepreneurship and innovation and Mariana Muhle - MA Entrepreneurship and Innovation.