Wednesday 17 June 2026 11:00am to 2:30pm
Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership The Entopia Building 1 Regent Street Cambridge CB2 1GG, UK
About
CISL’s Canopy are participating in the Cambridge Wide Open Day on Wednesday 17 June.
This year we are opening the door for two sessions, an introduction to Canopy + networking lunch (open to all) followed by an Investor Insight workshop (open to impact focused founders).
Sign up now
Part one: step inside the Canopy – open day information and tour
11:00 – 11:15: Registration
11:15 – 11:45: Introduction to CISL and the Canopy innovation community + Q&A
11:45 – 12:15: Tour of the Entopia Building
12:15 – 13:00: Networking lunch – an opportunity to connect with members of the Canopy community to find out more about groundbreaking innovations in climate tech.
Who should attend: Founders | innovation ecosystem professionals | investors
Over the past five years, CISL has supported over 500 ventures to scale through our Canopy innovation community and accelerator programmes. The open day even will provide an overview of how CISL are support emerging innovation to scale, pilot and access markets, drawing on examples from our programmes with L’Oreal, UNICEF, The British Standards Institute and our community of high impact potential startups.
This will be followed by a tour of the award-winning Canopy workspace, housed within the Entopia Building, a world leading example of sustainable retrofit.
Sign up now
Part two: Canopy workshop - Investor Insight
13:00 – 14:30
Join this workshop to hone your skills in how to identify and land investment for your startup. This forum for early-stage ventures will help you build a personal playbook on how to run a successful fundraise with intel including how to approach conversations; building a narrative and how to identity and engage target investors. Led by Lucy Mortimer (Founding Partner at Archipelago Ventures), with expert insight from Phil O’Donova (Cambridge Angel) and Dr Spencer Brennan (CEO and Founder, Neutreeno), this interactive workshop is and designed to facilitate shared learning and input from fellow founders and entrepreneurs. Attendees will be invited to share their questions and challenges in advance of the workshop.
CONTRIBUTOR BIOS
Lucy Mortimer
Archipelago Ventures Founding Partner Lucy Mortimer is an environmental finance specialist with 25+ years’ experience within climate finance and low carbon investment. Lucy has a strong commercial background, having built businesses and teams across large financial institutions including Tradition and Nedbank. She has advised and worked for funds including Althelia’s first Natural Capital investment fund and has an excellent network to help startups and young companies succeed in overcoming commercial barriers.
Phil O’Donovan
Phil O’Donovan, as founding Managing Director, helped grow Cambridge-based CSR plc from a startup of nine cofounders in 1999 into a highly successful fabless semiconductor company. CSR listed on the London Stock Exchange in April 2004 and, in July of the same year, became a FTSE 250 company.
CSR launched its first Bluetooth device, the single-chip BlueCore01™ in 2000 and, within four years, became the largest global market supplier of Bluetooth chips. Annual revenue was $1Billion in 2012 and by 2015, CSR employed more than 2,000 people in 27 offices in 13 countries and had shipped 4Billion chips. CSR was acquired by US company Qualcomm in September 2015 for $2.5Billion.
Phil is an Engineer and a Cambridge-based mentor, director and angel investor in technology startups targeting Telecoms, Comms and Chip markets whilst employing the Fabless Semiconductor Business Model. He is also a speaker on entrepreneurial topics at universities and business schools and an advisor to organisations wishing to commercialise their IP.
Dr Spencer Brennan
Dr Spencer Brennan is Founder and CEO of Neutreeno, a Cambridge University spinout. With a PhD in applied renewable energy, physics and advanced measurement systems from Cambridge and 15 years' experience as a sustainability scientist, Spencer's team includes scientists who inform UN IPCC and IEA climate policy. His work challenges the Scope 3 status quo: rather than choosing between speed and accuracy, Neutreeno changes how industry makes products, cutting both emissions and costs at the source.
Neutreeno is a digital system that analyses how manufacturers have made their products and pinpoints switches that cut emissions and make operations more efficient at the same time. Neutreeno turns emissions intelligence into business performance to make decarbonisation simple, unlock efficiencies and drive down costs. Built by climate scientists and engineers from the University of Cambridge, the IPCC, and the IEA, Neutreeno is transforming how companies such as Sony, General Motors, National Grid, Danone and Logitech reduce emissions and increase performance.
Who should attend: Founders/early stage team members from impact focused ventures.
The workshop will focus on seed fundraise rounds, although earlier and later stage are welcome to attend.