NEWS16 February 2026
Surrey Venture Studios, a new early-stage entrepreneurship support programme, has officially launched at Surrey Research Park. The launch was marked by a Business Ideas workshop in early February. Through the programme, successful participants can secure up to £25,000 to help them start a company.
Thirteen budding business leaders were shortlisted from dozens of applicants to attend a series of workshops, the first of which took place in the Park’s flagship Surrey Technology Centre on Monday 9 February 2026.
Launched at the end of 2025, Surrey Venture Studios was developed by the county’s three universities – University of Surrey, Royal Holloway University of London and the University for the Creative Arts – to boost innovation, launch successful businesses and create jobs.
Funded by Surrey County Council’s Economic Growth Fund, it brings together
entrepreneurs, academics and students for intensive workshops. It is designed to support those with ideas, prototypes or early-stage research that haven’t yet reached their full revenue-generating potential.
At the end of the final workshop, participants will have an opportunity to pitch their now fully-formed business idea to a panel of business experts for a chance to secure up to £25k.
Matt Furniss, Surrey County Council’s Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Economic Growth, said: “In less than a year, the Economic Growth Fund has seen millions of pounds of funding invested in creating jobs and boosting growth across Surrey.
“Surrey Venture Studios is just one of dozens of projects which secured funding from the competitive process – and I’m looking forward to seeing some of these bright ideas develop and grow into fully-formed businesses in the months and years to come.”
The inaugural workshop was led by Chris Pett, Digital Innovation Sector Lead at SETsquared, who said: “The idea is that we’re building people up to the point where they feel more confident and capable to get out of the building and discover potential market opportunities based on the spark of an idea they’re thinking about right now.
“For a lot of them, this could result in a major change in their career from academic research into becoming an entrepreneur and potentially building a business.”
Caroline Fleming, Director of the Surrey Innovation District at the University of Surrey, who also supported the event, said: “We are delighted to launch this Surrey Venture Studios programme. We’ve got a brilliant collection of really bright minds – students, entrepreneurs and academics from the University of Surrey and the wider community – and we’ve been giving them some tips on how to think about what they need to do to develop their business.
“They’ve been really engaged, coming up with some fantastic questions and feedback, and hopefully they get really good value out of our workshop.”
A second round of applications is expected to open in spring 2026.
For further information visit the Surrey Ventures Studios page on the Business Surrey website.