INSIGHTS / News

SETsquared Surrey member, powerQuad is delighted to have won the Start-Up of the Year Award at the prestigious Central South Business Awards.

The Central South Business Awards event 2022, celebrating the achievements of remarkable businesses and teams working in the region, was held at the Hilton, Southampton. Businesses were invited to enter across a range of categories, sponsored by a diverse range of organisations.

The Start-Up of the Year Award, sponsored by Southampton Science Park, recognises a business with ‘entrepreneurial aptitude, vision, ambition, drive and commercial acumen to build a successful enterprise from a start-up’.

PowerQuad completed an initial application form and then took part in an interview with award judges at the University of Southampton Science Park. The only interview slot available was during the last day of the Green Man music festival in Wales where they had been powering an immersive environmental installation. The PowerQuad team had been onsite at the festival working hard for the previous four days but were able to attend the interview and impressed the judges with their responses.

At the awards event, the judges commended the PowerQuad team on their successful journey and how they have navigated their start-up path so far.

Gil Satchell, co-founder of powerQuad says,

“The judges were impressed with the development of the PowerQuad technology and the commercial success achieved in translating innovation into a revenue-generating business. SETsquared Surrey has been a great help in developing and articulating our business model.

There is a huge opportunity for us in helping to support the energy crisis, especially those who could be affected excessively by possible power outages. For those using temporary power, there is a growing worry about the cost of fuel and we can help alleviate that worry while reducing carbon impact at the same time.”

These are exciting times for PowerQuad. It has recently been awarded an Innovate UK grant to help bring its version two product to life, which will simplify setup and increase flexibility, helping the team to scale across bigger events for longer. The business has won an innovation voucher to develop a larger and more powerful version of its product, which will increase power output tenfold. This version is aimed at the catering and construction industries, enabling catering and construction sites to be charged from the EV charger network.

PowerQuad has also made it to the finals of both the Venturefest South Battle of the Pitches and the SETsquared@20 Investment Showcase.