Hackathons that turn into companies.
Cambridge Combinator runs hackathons in Cambridge and keeps the teams together afterwards. The best projects go on to a paid pilot with a real customer, and from there to market.
What starts at a hackathon should not end there.
Companies sponsor hackathons to meet talent. Students and researchers join to build something and to meet each other. Both sides get what they came for over the weekend, and lose it by Monday. The team disperses, the sponsor keeps a list of names, and the prototype is never picked up.
We exist to change that. Every good team should have a clear path from a weekend prototype to a paying pilot, and every relationship made along the way should be kept.
How it works
One path, four steps. We stay involved at every one of them.
Hackathon
Companies bring a real problem and a person who can say yes. Teams of students, researchers and early founders form around it and build for a weekend.
Cohort
Teams, mentors and sponsors stay together after the event. Who built what, and with whom, is recorded and confirmed by both sides.
Pilot
Within weeks, the strongest projects get a scoped, funded follow-up with the sponsor. We stay in the room as the bridge between team and company.
Market
Pilots that work become products, contracts and companies. The network they leave behind makes the next hackathon stronger.
Who it's for
Teams
Build something real over a weekend, keep the team you built it with, and get a path to your first paying customer. Free for participants.
Apply as a teamCompanies
Bring a problem you actually need solved. Leave with a team that keeps working on it, and a pilot you can say yes to.
Sponsor a hackathonOrganisers
Already run a hackathon in Cambridge? Run it with us and your cohort stays active long after the closing ceremony.
Partner with usWhy Cambridge
Cambridge has a dense calendar of hackathons, accelerator cohorts, student societies and corporate innovation teams, all within walking distance of each other.
Nobody follows a team from the hackathon into a pilot. We do.
Build with us
The next hackathon is being planned. Whether you want to build, sponsor or host, write to us and we will get back to you.
Email info@legislabs.uk