{"id":148,"date":"2019-06-03T14:59:25","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T13:59:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/enterprisesu\/?p=148"},"modified":"2025-07-29T20:08:54","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T19:08:54","slug":"qub-dragons-den","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/2019\/06\/03\/qub-dragons-den\/","title":{"rendered":"QUB Dragons’ Den"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Queen\u2019s Students scoop \u00a315,000 at\nQUB Dragons\u2019 Den <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Queen\u2019s University Belfast\u2019s Dragons\u2019 Den, sponsored by the MCS Group, Cavanagh Kelly, Tughans\nSolicitors and the Engineers in Business Fund came to an electrifying end again this year with 13 competitors braving\nthe den to pitch their business idea to a\npanel of business experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this year\u2019s prize pot totalling \u00a315,000,\ncompetition was fierce. Over 120 students applied, all aiming to brave the den\nand have the dragons fund their business idea to get it to the next stage.  Following an initial shortlist of 53 startup ideas down to 25 to the quick\npitch stage of the competition, 13 finalists were then selected to pitch their idea\nto this years\u2019 Dragons <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The competition is one of\nmany initiatives organised by Enterprise SU, the unit responsible for student\nentrepreneurship within Queen\u2019s University, to help Queen\u2019s students develop\nenterprise skills and start their own business. Throughout\nthe competition Enterprise SU provide business support workshops as well as specialist mentoring to prepare\nthe students for the panel of experts who will decide their fate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final decision proved a\ntough one with the Dragons choosing to split the \u00a315,000 investment amongst 4\nof the 13 competitors: Agile Roto, WriteEasy, Stand and Amp Signal Optimiser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Louise Smyth of the MCS Group\nsaid, \u201cThe QUB Dragons Den programme gives emerging entrepreneurs a platform to\npitch their ideas and showcase some amazing innovations not just to businesses\nbut potential investors. I have been extremely impressed by the team at Queens,\nthe quality of coaching and mentoring the students are exposed to throughout\nthe programme is evident throughout the process. Standards were extremely high,\nand I came away excited and extremely impressed by the professionalism of the\ntalented individuals who made it to the final, all are clearly destined to make\nreal impact to the world around us, this is an amazing programme.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Catherine Martin from sponsor\nCavanaghKelly said, “The standard of business ideas and quality of the\npitches exceeded all of my expectations. \nThe amount of talent on show in the Den was a credit to the students,\nEnterprise SU and all those who have worked with the students in preparation of\nthe event.   The awarding of the \u00a315,000\nprize pot was an extremely difficult decision for the Dragons, The future of\nthe NI economy is definitely bright if we can continue to foster such talented,\nentrepreneurial students\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lewis Loane, overall winner of the competition, said, \u201cDragons\u2019 Den experience is an excellent opportunity for any student entrepreneur. Meeting other students with great business ideas and enthusiasm was a key highlight of the experience. The support given by Enterprise SU was exemplarily, their knowledge and guidance transformed my approach to business. The expert Dragon’s were encouraging and engaging and have already opened doors to new business opportunities for my Signal Optimiser.\u2019  Lewis was one of 4 winners in the competition, and won \u00a36,000 to help him focus on getting through to the next round of the Catalyst Inc. Invent Competition.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Winner of 6K: Lewis Loane<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Winner of 4K: Jonathan Adams<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Winner of 2.5K: Michael Upham<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Winner of 2.5K: Team STAND<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Judith Maguire and Winner Lewis Loane<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All photographs taken by Aurora Photography: <\/em>https:\/\/aurorapa.com\/<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Queen\u2019s Students scoop \u00a315,000 at QUB Dragons\u2019 Den Queen\u2019s University Belfast\u2019s Dragons\u2019 Den, sponsored by the MCS Group, Cavanagh Kelly, Tughans Solicitors and the Engineers in Business Fund came to an electrifying end again this year with 13 competitors braving the den to pitch their business idea to a panel of business experts. With this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[234,74,299,52,66],"tags":[226,227,228,235,230],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-competitions","category-dragons-den","category-student-businesses","category-student-life","category-upskilling-opportunities","tag-enterprisesu","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-lovequb","tag-qubdragonsden","tag-studentstartups","czr-hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2019\/06\/Untitled-design-4.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6B2ST-2o","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4522,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions\/4522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}