Celebrating success with Invest in Nottingham and the Class of 2011

At an event held at Nottingham Contemporary, and sponsored by the UNIEI and Staffbay more than 150 Invest in Nottingham Club members and guests celebrated nine thriving and expanding companies which set up in the city and county – the class of 2011.

A number of the companies which make up the class of 2011 are Nottingham University spin-outs or received direct support during their early stages from the UNIEI’s EnterpriseLab. These include Skeleton Productions, a video production company; website performance monitoring firm Aware Monitoring and specialists in wireless foetal heart monitoring, Monica Healthcare.

Sir John Peace, chairman of Standard Chartered Bank and one of the founders of Experian, chaired the event - which was also attended by Dr Stewart Adams, who famously led the team which discovered Ibruprofen in Nottingham.

Sir John said: "It's impressive to see just how diverse businesses are which are being created here in the city. Look at the quality of the people and how they are driven to succeed. One of the most impressive qualities of all these people has to be their drive to make their businesses a success.”

Professor Simon Mosey, Director of UNIEI said of the event: “We were delighted to sponsor the event since we believe the university has a key role in supporting the kind of entrepreneurial behaviour demonstrated tonight. It was particularly encouraging to see so many of our graduates represented in the class of 2011 and hope to see a similar pattern next year.”