Queen Mary University of London has won the Business Impact Achieved Award from an influential UK network that supports innovation and commercialisation of research for a spin-out called Actual Experience plc.
The award from PraxisUnico recognises projects that have made an outstanding commercial impact through successful knowledge transfer, where there is evidence of success delivered, and is one of three award categories which featured at the awards ceremony in Cardiff last Thursday (12 June 2014).
QMUL has a track record of winning awards for innovation – in 2010, the synthetic bone substitute spin-out ApaTech won the award in the same category.
Adam Daykin, Head of Technology Transfer (Tech & Eng) at Queen Mary Innovation (QMI) said: “Actual Experience is a major success story for QMUL. Since 2009, it has managed a period of sustained growth, picking up a number of large global clients. Having recently listed, we see an excellent future and QMI is very proud to have helped the company to where it is today.”
Based on a decade of research at Queen Mary’s School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Actual Experience provides digital supply chain analytics that measure the quality of digital applications and products for businesses, thereby improving the experience of employees, customers, and partners with regard to important digital products and services.
In 2012, the company won the IET Innovation Award for Information Technology. Since then their customer base has more than tripled, including blue chips in Germany and the US. To support continued expansion, both in the UK and internationally, the company recently completed a £4m financing round with one of Europe's largest investment managers – Henderson Global Investors.
The company scooped another prestigious industry award for technology excellence when it won the UK Innovation and Entrepreneurship category in the 2013 UK IT Industry awards run by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.
Jonathan Pitts, Professor of Communication Engineering at QMUL, who co-founded Actual Experience, commented: "Research impact is very much a team effort. In the Networks Group I've collaborated with Raul Mondragon, Chris Phillips and John Schormans over many years on the underpinning research, which ultimately led to my work on Perceptual Quality quantification and impairment diagnosis. Successful technology transfer takes hard work and dedication. Adam Daykin and Graeme Brown of QMI were invaluable, helping the company successfully negotiate the various IP, funding and resourcing challenges of university spinout formation. As for the future, Actual Experience is building a great team to take this research impact into the global marketplace and we have been greatly encouraged by the level of our success to date."
QMI is responsible for fostering sustainable high-growth companies from Queen Mary University of London’s research and manages the university’s equity interests in its spin-out portfolio.
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