King's College London

Venture Crawl is the Entrepreneurship Institute’s flagship annual event, that invites students to visit some of London’s entrepreneurial hotspots, including start-ups, social enterprises, co-working spaces and more. Students had the chance to network with each other between stops, whilst sharing their thoughts and ideas.

This year’s packed agenda featured stops at:

• Santander Work Café - meeting Remy Foucher (Santander Education & Social Impact Relationship Director) and touring their meeting rooms, shared workspaces, branch counter and barista outlet. 

• Seven Dials Market - enjoying a delicious lunch from independent food start-ups, serving cuisine from around the world. 

• King's Start-up Founders Panel - featuring King's alumni and King's Start-up Accelerator cohort members, Mmekidmfon Umanah (CEO at Aimcare), Jas Wilks (Founder & CEO of Rejazz and Let's Fund Her), and Tanguy Lamy (Co-Founder & CEO of AquaZoo Consulting Partners), who shared their journeys of starting a business.

• Red Bull London HQ - visiting their only UK office and hearing how innovation plays a huge part in the company's brand and sustainability strategies, from Amelia Bell (Consumer Collecting Specialist), Holly Cook (Product Communications Specialist), and Emma Lindsay (Sustainability Manager). 

Students from 10 other London universities also took part in their own crawls, organised by the Enterprise teams at Brunel University of London, Birkbeck University of London, Goldsmiths University of London, University of Greenwich, Imperial College London, London College of Fashion, London School of Economics, Loughborough London, Queen Mary, and London Met. 

The day ended with a London Venture Crawl Pitch Off at Bush House, hosted by Jenna Dominique and Ben Cole, where each London-participating university nominated a student to pitch their start-up idea in just 90 seconds. Aya Safieddine, an International Development student, and recent Idea Factory 2025 finalist represented King's whilst pitching her own venture, Archif.

The judging panel featured Marianthe Evangelidis (Director of Sustainable Finance and Investment & Chair of Capital Enterprise), Amir Rizwan (Director, London Social Ventures), Deborah Okenia (CEO of YSYS & Angel Investor) and Christopher D'souza (Founder & CEO of ProPrep, and last year's Venture Crawl Pitch Champion).

Adam Rosenthal from Imperial was announced the winner for 2025! 

In the Venture Crawl International Pitch Competition, there were a total of 1,509 votes cast with the winner securing an impressive 653 votes - congratulations Matteo Nania from Oxford Brooks University!

The event ended with networking over food and drink, providing more opportunities for students to meet other students from outside their own university.

Launched in 2017 by King's College London, Venture Crawl has since grown to include 13 London-based university partners and many others around the UK and overseas, including University of Warwick, University of Wolverhampton, Oxford Brooks, University of Sussex, University of South Africa, University of Strathclyde, British International University, and Westminster International University in Tashkent. 

Venture Crawl will return in 2026 on Wednesday 11th March.

Photo credit: Nathan Clarke Photography.