Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2000/01/27/eincubator_targets_uk_students/

E-incubator targets UK students

Drop out of university, become mega-rich, change your name to Gates

By Tim Richardson

Posted in On-Prem, 27th January 2000 16:36 GMT

Undergraduates who can't face the thought of attending any more lectures are being given the chance to bail out before they do their final exams. A new incubator fund from Oxygen Group plc is raising £2.2 million, through a placing of 110 million ordinary shares, to invest in students who have a cracking Internet business idea. And there's the catch - you have to have a good business idea, and you won't get one of those sitting in front of daytime TV eating Pot Noodles and smoking wonga. Or maybe you will. Oxygen has already set up camp in Cambridge University but intends to scour campuses up and down the country in the search for tomorrow's Internet millionaires. Typically, it will invest between £100,000 and £250,000 in the new ventures. Oxygen executive chairman, Michael Edelson, said: "Oxygen wants to harness the talent emerging from our universities, in order to capture the best ideas as they emerge and before the competition for them escalates." Edelson is being helped in the new venture by his daughter Emma, a graduate of Queens College, Cambridge. Earlier this week four former students from Nottingham Trent University, who created Student-net.co.uk, received £10 million backing from US-based International Media Products Group. ® For more bubble nonsense, check-out Cash Register See also: Students become millionaires in their spare time