When Benjamin Felt stepped onto the stage at Cornwall Slush’D 2025, few in the audience knew it was his first time ever pitching publicly. His polished Strain Vaults pitch won him the 2025 Cornwall Slush’D trophy and a ticket to Slush, the biggest gathering of tech founders and investors in Europe. Behind that seemingly effortless performance lay weeks of preparation, creative hustling, and an unconventional journey into biotech entrepreneurship. Strain Vaults is the UK’s first fully sequenced, centralised microbial biobank.
Watch the full interview with Benjamin here. Watch Benjamin’s Strain Vaults pitch here.
An Unlikely Path to Biotech
Benjamin’s route to founding a biotech startup wasn’t typical. Until age 18, he was pursuing a professional tennis career, competing at high levels with dreams of going pro. That path took an unexpected turn when he secured an opportunity to work at GALY, a Brazilian biotech startup pioneering lab-grown cotton. This was a self-sourced year in industry as part of his degree at Bath University.
The experience proved transformative. Working closely with CEO Luciano Bueno, Benjamin saw that biotech innovation was really shaping the future of the world. However, Benjamin arrived in Brazil speaking no Portuguese, and had to present to 30-40 people in Portuguese within just two to three months of arriving, learning the language rapidly.
Finding the Problem Worth Solving
After completing his Biology degree at the University of Bath, Benjamin was determined to pursue biotech entrepreneurship after winning the Systems Biology competition with Plague Prevention Solutions, an idea to stop locust swarms in eastern Africa. The spark for Strain Vaults came from a conversation with a PhD student friend who was developing a new therapy and struggling to acquire bacterial strains to create the new enzyme required. The import costs were prohibitively high, and lead times stretched to several months, a delay that actually stopped the project before it could begin.
But recognising a problem and building a company to solve it are entirely different challenges, especially when you have no network, no funding, and no clear path forward.
The Catering Team Hustle
Unable to afford the £700 ticket to Anglo Nordic, a major biotech conference in London, he emailed everyone on the organising team until they offered him a spot on the catering crew. By chance, he was assigned to the welcome team. As attendees arrived, Benjamin introduced them to the event, and to himself and Strain Vaults, crafting his own name badge to speed up introductions.
That experience led to the initial network in the biotech space and secured Benjamin lab space, mentors and, later down the line, grant funding too. It’s a masterclass in resourcefulness: when you can’t buy your way in, find another door.
Slush’D answers that call. It brings investors, innovators, and ideas directly into the heart of Cornwall, helping to rewrite the narrative of our region, from a seasonal destination to a year-round innovation engine. Sign up to find out where Cornwall Slush’D is heading in 2026. In the meantime, you can get a taste of Cornwall Slush’D at Demo Nights, hosted in partnership with Canopy Community. Apply to pitch to a friendly audience, or attend to support pitchers and network.
Preparing for Slush’D: The Power of Iteration
When Benjamin applied to Cornwall Slush’D, Strain Vaults was very young and he thought he might be too early. Two months later he found out he’d been selected as a finalist at Cornwall Slush’D 2025, which was pretty daunting knowing what needed to be done to get pitch day ready.
His preparation strategy was rigorous:
Seeking Feedback at Scale: Benjamin sent his pitch deck to 30-40 people on LinkedIn, including venture capitalists he’d never met. He wasn’t asking for investment, he was asking for insights into how investors think and what makes companies successful. The response rate was surprisingly positive.
Iterating Relentlessly: His pitch went through at least 30 iterations based on feedback. A crucial lesson emerged: explaining the science wasn’t enough. He needed to tell a compelling story that non-biologists could understand and connect with emotionally.
Building an Advisory Team: Through his outreach to VCs, Benjamin discovered something he hadn’t initially prioritised, the importance of building a solid expert team around you. This insight changed not just his pitch, but how he was building the company itself and a key advisory team.
Cornwall Slush’D – the day itself
The day of Cornwall Slush’D was characteristically intense for Benjamin. Still unable to draw a salary from Strain Vaults despite some early grant funding, he was working evenings as a tennis coach to pay for. The night before the event, he coached until nearly 11pm, then caught a midnight coach from Victoria Station for the seven-hour journey to Cornwall.
Arriving in Newquay after just 1 hour of sleep, he headed straight for coffee to fuel the day and get in the zone, and then went to pitch. When another founder’s transport was delayed, Benjamin was asked to pitch earlier than scheduled. He simply said yes, walked to the front, and delivered what appeared to be an effortless, professional presentation.
The secret? A crucial piece of advice from the pitch coach support “When you get up there, the first thing you do is take three or four seconds to just look out, compose yourself, breathe, and then get started.” That simple technique, combined with his rigorous preparation, led to Benjamin winning the Cornwall Slush’D 2025 pitch competition.
Beyond the Prize: The Extra Value of Cornwall Slush’D
Beyond the validation of winning, Cornwall Slush’D provided additional tangible Benjaminefits for Benjamin and Strain Vaults.
Investor Access: The event gave Benjaminjamin face-to-face time with investors who would typically require extensive cold outreach to reach. He had four or five meaningful meetings with potential investors who had already seen his pitch, a much warmed introduction that cold outreach.
Peer Connections: Benjaminjamin formed bonds with other founders, particularly Katie from KASA Tech, a fellow young solo founder. Finding people on similar journeys provided both inspiration and practical support.
Validation Through Stories: The talks and panels during the afternoon led to Benjamin hearing from successful CEOs who had also started straight out of university, without extensive networks or prior entrepreneurial experience, providing evidence that his path was viable and others had been there before.
Looking Forward: The Next Chapter
Benjamin plans to launch his pre-seed funding round within weeks of winning Cornwall Slush’D. His goal for the next year is to demonstrate that clients can successfully commercialise products using Strain Vaults. The commercial platform is set to launch in January 2026, with initial letters of intent signed by potential customers. In the next year, Benjamin wants to show that Strain Vaults has helped clients skip spending hundreds of thousands on strains they don’t need and reach commercialisation faster.
Lessons from an Unconventional Journey
My top takeaways from my discussion with Benjamin:
Be humble: Benjamin admitted to being new to this and wanting to get advice and support from those more experienced. Not only did he spend time looking for, and connecting with those people, he took their feedback on board and actioned it, even when he may previously have held a different opinion.
Hustle creatively: hustle-culture (rightly so) has a bad reputation for overwork and obsessive working, but Benjamin shows what the heart of this actually is. Working on the catering team at the conference you want to access shows how to get access to what you need by working smart.Ask for help: the famous phrase says ‘if you don’t ask, you don’t get’ and that rings true through all of Benjamin’s story. Asking for feedback and help has led to him building an expert, experienced network of supporters who have shared feedback and advice that are directing the future of Strain Vaults. Don’t block yourself by thinking people will say no before you’ve tried.
Benjamin Felt is the founder of Strain Vaults and winner of Cornwall Slush’D 2025. Strain Vaults is the UK’s first fully sequenced, centralised microbial biobank, helping researchers and companies accelerate biotech innovation in the UK.
