Graduate start-ups and entrepreneurs
Transforming student employability, promoting entrepreneurship, and growing small businesses.
In July 2024, the University of Liverpool received a transformative £1M donation from The Sir Peter Rigby Charitable Trust to establish the Sir Peter Rigby Centre for Enterprise.
The Centre is designed to empower, inspire, and coach the next generation of entrepreneurs – helping them unlock their enterprise spirit and achieve success, whether by launching their own ventures or building impactful careers.
How we build entrepreneurs
Many students are introduced to entrepreneurial thinking as part of their degree, and encouraging students to create their own path is core to the University’s student enterprise offer. Programmes like Design Your Future make entrepreneurship feel accessible.
Starting a business isn't an equal risk for everyone. Bursaries help close that gap, covering costs to register a company, buy equipment, or simply buy time to focus on an idea.
But the impact goes beyond money. Entrepreneurship and Start-up Consultant, Alison Pountney, said: “confidence usually comes after you start, not before - students need opportunities to try things, speak to people, and build the self-belief that makes the next step possible.”
Once students reach a certain stage, the University will connect them with the wider entrepreneurial and innovation
Learn more about Careers & Employability at the University of Liverpool.
Student enterprise stories
George: Supporting local businesses
Founder of a digital consultancy for local independent businesses, George combined his Master's in International Business with a Santander Bursary to launch his first client project. His work helps cafés, retailers and service providers who "often get left behind by rapid technological change" build their online presence. Read George's story here.
Shantanu Kundu: From blog to charity
Dr Shantanu Kundu turned a bedroom blog into Be Free Campaign, a registered mental health charity supporting over 5,000 young people by delivering early intervention programmes to 11 to 25 year olds. Proof that University enterprise support extends well beyond commercial start-ups. Read Shantanu's story here.
Eman: Putting digital skills into practice
A Liverpool Interns placement with education technology start-up Beat Modules gave Computer Science student Eman the confidence to pursue her future career goals. Working directly with the CEO and CTO, she led front-end development on a platform used in schools, redesigning one feature into a detective-style game that teaches young people to spot manipulation in media and advertising. Read Eman's story here.
Moises Barbera Ramos: Drill Surgeries
Moises Barbera Ramos is the University of Liverpool’s award-winning entrepreneur, enterprise fund recipient and founder of Drill Surgeries, a vibrant start-up in the medical device industry driven to improve Intramedullary Nailing surgeries worldwide.
Moises and his team have developed a fully working prototype of their non-invasive medical device powered through Artificial Intelligence (AI) to guide surgeons during trauma surgeries accurately and without radiation. The prototype has been successfully tested on mannequins by international surgeons.
Moises has shown uninterrupted passion on the field of entrepreneurship, founding Drill Surgeries whilst studying at the University in 2019. Moises overcame the barriers of studying a complex degree programme (Masters in Physics) while striving to grow his start-up developing non-invasive medical devices powered through Artificial Intelligence in one of the most diverse and innovative sectors.
Since 2021, with the support of Liverpool Interns and The Enterprise Fund, Moises has offered work experience for a full month to a team of students from the School of Life Sciences coming from underrepresented backgrounds to support their accessibility to this competitive job market.
Moises has also worked with other organizations like Liverpool John Moores University, Made Smarter, Agent Academy and the Liverpool City Council to provide job opportunities to young individuals, offering one full-time position, three internships and two work experiences (one for a student of the Agent Academy initiative and another work experience to a group of five BAME students from the School of Life Sciences as part of the Enterprise Challenge initiative). In total, Moises has directly and positively impacted the lives and career development of at least 10 individuals in the Liverpool City Region (LCR)*. Moises has participated in panel talks and keynote speeches about MedTech and attended careers fairs providing first-hand insights to hundreds of students about his work and entrepreneurial experiences in healthcare and the medical technology industry. As part of the pay-it-forward ethos in our entrepreneurial community at University of Liverpool, Moises also delivers a session on pitching and presenting as a guest speaker for the HEAR-credited Design Your Future 10-week business development programme, which has now been successfully running for two years.
Contact details www.drillsurgeries.com
Alex Shakeshaft: Enturi
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges that humanity faces. That means that developing transformative technologies that can support the net-zero transition is one of the biggest economic opportunities.
Enturi is a new company that is seeking to establish itself in this market, delivering economic and environmental benefits. The Liverpool City Region-based start-up has
developed a ground-breaking portable wind powered distributed energy system that is set to deliver significant contributions towards a lower carbon future. Co-founded by former University of Liverpool student, Alex Shakeshaft, Enturi is focused on rapidly deploying and generating accessible off-grid green energy supplies with a particular
focus on the maritime industry. Enturi’s pioneering and patented turbines are integrated into portable, decentralised energy storage vessels, supported by a secure IoT system for data visibility and interoperability.
The solution could be transformative for the maritime industry which often requires power in areas that are not supported by existing grid infrastructure. These next-generation wind energy systems are an off-grid solution that generates and stores renewable energy - serving as a charging hub for electric vehicles, lighting
systems, and powering light industrial processes.
With the capacity to generate >£60,000 of clean energy annually per 10-turbine system, Enturi is not just a game-changer for energy cost reduction but also a significant contributor to reducing carbon emissions, mitigating >80,000kg of CO2e per system per annum by transitioning energy use away from the fossil fuel mix of the
national grid to locally generated clean energy.
Enturi’s vision to diversify green energy supplies aligns with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), addressing not only the urgent need for cleaner energy but also providing a roadmap for industries looking to embrace sustainability.
Co-founder and CEO: Alex Shakeshaft. BEng Aerospace Engineering with Pilot Studies (2020), MSc Masters in Management (2021), and Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellow (2023).
Contact details: Enturi Solutions Ltd
Read more student enterprise stories here.
Be part of our ambition to support 50,000 students, staff, and local young people through funding, networking, and skills development programmes. Discover more about the Sir Peter Rigby Centre for Enterprise here.
The Sir Peter Rigby Centre for Enterprise also supports academic spin-outs and provides staff with the resources to turn groundbreaking research into thriving businesses.