History students win 'Best Pitch' at Lion's Den 2013

Winners of the annual King’s College London Lion’s Den programme were announced last week, with eight finalists pitching their ideas to the judging panel, competing for a total prize fund of £19,000.

In its sixth year, the competition included two categories aimed at rewarding innovate business ideas and creative solutions to global issues – Lion’s Den Challenge and World Question’s | Lion’s Den answers.

In the Lion’s Den Challenge category, History students Ashleigh Mackenzie and Giles Strachan won ‘Best Pitch’ for their business plan ‘A Little Knowledge’, a historical research consultancy offering historical reports to commercial media and public sector clients.

The Lion’s Den programme aims to equip postgraduate students and postdoctoral research staff at King’s with essential business skills and knowledge, as well as providing a launch pad for entrepreneurs to make their business ideas reality. The programme included a series of workshops that covered business skills, marketing, finance and how to write a business plan.

Michael Hill-King, sponsor of the Lion’s Den Challenge and Director of Partnerships and Consultancy at King’s, said: ‘It’s great to see such big ideas and entrepreneurial spirit coming through Lion’s Den each year. As well as nurturing the business skills and commercial acumen of King’s researchers and postgraduate students, Lion’s Den provides a fantastic platform for turning ideas into a reality.

‘This year, for the first time, we’re continuing this support by introducing Lion’s Den + to our activities, which goes one step further by not only offering a reward to competition winners, but also providing Intellectual Property advice, business support, starter boot-camp and networking opportunities to all competition participants.’

The Lion’s Den programme is a joint initiative by King’s Business and Innovation and King’s Graduate School.

Notes to editors

Visit the Lion’s Den Challenge website for more details on this year’s competition.

For further information on entrepreneurship activities at King’s please contactinnovation@kcl.ac.uk and follow us on Twitter @innovatekings.

For further information about King’s visit our ‘King’s in Brief’ page.