ChipStart UK | Founder reveals how previous startup failure created a springboard for future success
25th January – ChipStart UK’s first event of the year – saw the cohort of semiconductor startups in attendance give insight on how to navigate their journey ahead by a Founder who had failed on the aims on one of his pursuits.
Smell has the power to invoke memories, arouse emotion, and alert our evolutionary instincts to warn us of danger. Such a sense, therefore, has real potential to tap into something very tangible for consumers. Yet, during the virtual reality (VR) craze that has come over the consumer and even business market, smell has remained largely untapped. We’ve, for instance, heard fuss about a VR treadmill to incorporate further immersion into the realm, but not seen the same for smell… until now.
Smell has the power to invoke memories, arouse emotion, and alert our evolutionary instincts to warn us of danger. Such a sense, therefore, has real potential to tap into something very tangible for consumers. Yet, during the virtual reality (VR) craze that has come over the consumer and even business market, smell has remained largely untapped. We’ve, for instance, heard fuss about a VR treadmill to incorporate further immersion into the realm, but not seen the same for smell… until now.
Fashion and its supply chain is the third largest polluting industry. It emits 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, releasing 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, more than the shipping and aviation industry combined. Yet unlike say the oil industry, fashion is one sphere where consumers can exercise a greater level of control in their interactions with it. Whering was created to highlight that control.
Sometimes, successful startups don’t need to do anything new, they just need to do it better. HumanForest is one such a company taking that route. Rather than reinvent the wheel, they are seeking to make something that already works, better. Bike sharing. Sure, you’ve heard of it, from Santander Cycles to Lime bikes, they lounge on the pavements of major world cities and help everyone from tourists to company execs circumnavigate the city.
The idea of VR and exercise may seem either unfamiliar or incompatible to some, but the fact is the immersion VR offers can lend to some convincing scenery for avid cyclist to take a workout in. Imagine, it’s Monday, you live in central Paris, you get home from work at six o’clock; you’re a 25-minute, one-way journey from your nearest park, perhaps it’s also raining too. So many hurdles present themselves before you have even committed to go for a ride that for some, the easier option to not go may win them over.
As a startup, you might already know the value of knowledge and learning new things. Yet, if I were to ask you what is Web3, only the shrewdest might be able to answer. A study released in early 2023 showed only 18% of male and 7% of female respondents have heard the term. But, if we were to ask the same question about NFTs, that number jumps substantially. Yet things like NFTs, that have already generated millions of dollars, work closely with and promise to be a big part of this ‘next iteration of the Internet’.
Marc was getting fed up with having to change his plans to meet Airbnb guests who were arriving late; an issue that both hosts and guests can attest to its frequency. To tackle this, he began asking a local cafe to hold the keys for him. But what started off as a fix for his circumstance evolved into an idea that aimed to tackle this issue for everyone – and that’s when the idea for KeyNest was born.











