Bath students crowned runner up in NatWest 10k challenge

Back in January we shared the news that two students from our University of Bath Entrepreneurship Programme had made it through to the final of the NatWest 10k pitching challenge! The challenge started back in November 2020 as part of the NatWest Business Builder programme which is available to anyone starting a business.

NatWest Business Builder launched the 10K Challenge to help budding business people perfect a killer 60-second business pitch – and give one person the chance to win £10,000 to develop their business.

More than 7,000 people attended Business Builder’s free virtual pitching workshops throughout 2020 Global Entrepreneurship Week in November, with over 750 entrepreneurs submitting their own 60-second pitches to the 10K Challenge. Out of those 750 applicants not one but two University of Bath students made it through to the Live Final.

“In a year like 2020 with not much to celebrate, we wanted to change that and champion the incredible businesses that we work with every day by showcasing their amazing work,” says Josh Winfield, NatWest’s regional ecosystem manager for the Midlands and East of England, who helped organise the competition. “The standard of the pitches across the board was extraordinary. It’s been a real privilege to work with the businesses of tomorrow, today.”

We are extremely pleased to announce that James Russ and co-founder Andrei Petrus, Mechanical Engineering with Integrated Design Engineering - Researching Biomedical Infomatics at the University of Bath were the runners up in the competition with their start up business, Testmyteeth.

Pitch outline: “Test My Teeth is an affordable dental diagnostic service that removes the inconvenience and reduces the cost of in-person appointments. Basic diagnosis is achieved using a smartphone with low-cost attachments to capture images and machine learning to automatically highlight issues.”

Watch the pitch

Judge’s comments: “Here is someone using their skills and available technology to the best of their outstanding ability, to fundamentally do good. James’s technical and medical proficiency were evident from the moment he began speaking, but it was his clarity of vision and actions as well as the potential to bring an improved quality of life to millions (if not billions) that really engaged the judges.”

James, who is a Mechanical Engineering with Integrated Design Engineering student at the University of Bath- Researching Dental Devices and former Research and Development Engineer at Dyson told us:

“I am so excited to have pitched 🦷 Testmyteeth in the 'NatWest 10K challenge' national final and secured a place as a runner up!!

Andrei Petrus (my co-founder) and I originally attended the NatWest pitching workshop back in November and we were very impressed with the impact and importance of a succinct business pitch. So, we set out developing our own for Testmyteeth. We applied to the SETsquared 'Dragons' Den 1' competition with our early pitch and secured a £500 grant, allowing us to begin prototyping. We continued to tweak the final pitch and submitted it to the NatWest competition. I then rehearsed the pitch countless times ahead of the final, and I am so pleased to have placed as a runner up. It was an incredible experience and seeing so many talented founders deliver such concise and powerful pitches about their own businesses was particularly rewarding.

As a runner up, we get to join the NatWest Business 6-month accelerator programme. This will provide valuable business mentorship, key industry contacts and access to NatWest facilities at their hubs across the UK (once they reopen). This will help to accelerate our mission to make dental care more affordable and accessible! Testmyteeth is currently one of six teams on the University of Bath Acceler8 programme, and we are really excited to develop our MVP over the next few months and see what the future holds!"

---

“We’ve seen a shift to the home for so many things over the last year but being able to look after your teeth is an innovative and novel approach to well-being and self-care. James and Andrei did a great pitch to Dragons' Den and secured some proof of concept funding last November and I'm delighted that James has gone so far in the NatWest competition - they've both worked incredibly hard.”

Siobain Hone, Graduate Enterprise Manager, University of Bath

Congratulations to James and Andrei! It’s great to see students taking part in our Entrepreneurship Programme gain access to exciting competitions and startup springboards like this and we can’t wait to see Testmyteeth really take off. A big well done to the other University of Bath student, Will Hughes, who also made it through to the final pitching round and congratulations to the overall competition winner Lilidh Matthews, founder of Finding Roots which is a micro-garden subscription for those without a garden. You can find out more about the competition, the winner and runner ups here.

If you have a business idea and would like to be kept informed about exciting opportunities such as this then please email enterprise@bath.ac.uk or check out the programme here. Please note the Entrepreneurship Programme is available to University of Bath students only.