Company: KEVRI
Website: https://kevri.co
About Natalie & KEVRI
Three founders started KEVRI in June 2021. The business stems from an idea that naturally formed during of the founders Master’s of Entrepreneurship course in Cornwall.
If you’re wondering what the word KEVRI means, it translates from the Cornish language as ‘contribute’. KEVRI the company, is a digital start-up that supports universities and their academic staff to capture and showcase their Knowledge Exchange contributions.
Previous to KEVRI, Emily was an education journalist, Natalie was a university lecturer, and Corin was a UI designer- now they are a growing team who are driving their solution forward to the forefront of the EdTech field.
As a start-up, they have faced many challenges together. For Emily, the two biggest challenges have been:
1- Learning to be agile. A fellow entrepreneur Michael Calver (Viewr) once told her ‘running a startup is like firefighting, you always need to put the fires out.’ This phrase has stuck with her ever since. Every day at KEVRI is a new day. Even though they have set roles, they have had to channel their inner octopus and manage many tasks in a time-pressured environment.
2- Raising the profile as a women-led startup. As the Head of Marketing, her job is to search for the pitch and investment opportunities that also favour female-founded businesses. They all know the stats- such as ‘’Women-Led Startups Received Just 2.3% of VC Funding in 2020’’ * source- https://hbr.org/2021/02/women-led-startups-received-just-2-3-of-vc-funding-in-2020 ). So this challenge is a HUGE one as they share this challenge with so many other women-led startups out there.
This year, they are launching a centralised software system to capture universities’ Knowledge Exchange data for funding purposes. They are also developing digital resources to help university staff and academics demystify the concept of Knowledge Exchange.
They are currently completing their beta tests with selected UK universities and developing the logic models for a software system. They have many events on the horizon too – they will be presenting their solution during the BETT London event in March and the University Industry Innovation Network (UIIN) Amsterdam conference in June.
The inspiring females behind the business are co-founders Corin, Emily and Natalie.
Yet Corin and Emily both wanted to nominate co-founder Natalie as an influential woman in tech!
CEO Natalie Campion is a driven, determined and agile leader. She works all day, every day, to get KEVRI off the ground. She inspires Corin and Emily to upskill their professional capabilities and never stop learning. She ensures that KEVRI benefits all our stakeholders while supporting universities to heighten their social and economic impact.
Natalie has come from a higher education industry yet submerges her skills into the world of software, data analysis and AI. They love having her as their CEO and watching her evolve into a strong and inspiring tech leader that the UK EdTech landscape needs.
