Harry Destecroix, winner of Exit of the Year at the 2019 UKBAA Angel Investment Awards, discusses the importance of being recognised by the awards

Harry Destecroix co-founded Ziylo while studying for his PhD at the University of Bristol. The company created a new technology that can be developed to treat diabetes more effectively.

In 2018 Harry exited the company in a multi-million pound deal and that huge achievement was recognised with the Exit of the Year Award at the 2019 UKBAA Angel Investment Awards. Looking back to being nominated, Harry enthuses:

“That recognition within the UKBAA has been fantastic (and led to us) meet(ing) lots of very interesting people. That’s opened up doors, moving forwards. Having that recognition just makes it easier when you’re trying to form new relationships and build new things.”

Given his own success at the awards, Harry encourages other entrepreneurs to put themselves forward for this year’s awards, taking place on 8th June.

“There’s not much to lose. It was a great experience. It’s helped propel our company’s missions forwards. It’s a great opportunity to meet some very, very entrepreneurial people who’ve done amazing things, and it was a very interesting and fun event. I’d thoroughly recommend it to anybody. Definitely submit (a nomination).”

Harry is now the CEO of Science Creates Incubators, a Bristol-based deep tech ecosystem supported and backed by successful entrepreneurs that helps scientists and engineers accelerate their ideas and build disruptive businesses from scientific discoveries.

Watch the full interview with Harry at the top of this article and find out more about Science Creates at https://sciencecreates.co.uk/.

Nominations for the 2021 UKBAA Angel Investment Awards close on 11th April 2021. Visit http://awards.ukbaa.org.uk/ to submit your nomination.