Parmee Prize 2025 - FAQs
About the Parmee Prize
The Parmee Prize is an annual entrepreneurship competition for Pembroke College undergraduate and postgraduate students organised by the Corporate Partnership Programme. William Pitt Fellow Dr Richard Parmee (1970), from Corporate Partner company Cheyney, devised the competition to support aspiring entrepreneurs.
The Parmee Prize welcomes applications from all stages of the entrepreneurship journey, and training and mentoring from Richard helps applicants develop their business idea. Budding entrepreneurs are asked to fill in an application form and short-listed candidates are given pitching training and asked to pitch their business to a panel of judges. The winning applicant gets £2000 to develop their business and receives mentoring support from Richard.
The Parmee Prize will be delivered in-person, and will be followed by a dinner.
If your question is not answered below, please email corporate@pem.cam.ac.uk
The application process:
- Applications close in January 2025.
- Applications will be reviewed by the judges and short-listed candidates will be notified be confirmed at a later date.
- All applicants (regardless of short-listing) will be invited to participate in a ‘How to pitch your idea’ training session with Dr Richard Parmee be in February (exact date TBC).
- Shortlisted applicants will be invited to present their idea to the judges on a TBC date in March 2025, 4-6pm
- Presentations should be 10 minutes long and will be followed by 10 minutes of questions. You can use slides.
- The judges will select the winner after all the presentations
- The winner will receive £2000 and mentorship from Dr Richard Parmee to continue to develop their business idea
Mentorship
- Past winners and applicants appreciate the mentorship from Dr Richard Parmee as more valuable than the cash prize when developing their business idea. Many past winners and applicants have gone on to become entrepreneurs themselves and lead successful businesses
Eligibility
- A team of applicants is welcome, but the lead applicant must be a Pembroke College undergraduate or postgraduate student
Sponsors
- The Parmee Prize is sponsored by Richard Parmee and DG Marshall Trust
Judges
The Judges in 2025 are
- Dr Samantha Deacon (2004) - Maxwell Centre
- Mr Mark Mann (1999) - Oxford University Innovation
- Mr Piers Morgan (1985) - Pangea Bio
- Mr Simon Harris (1969) - Lambda Energy Ltd
- Mr Robert Marshall (1989) - Marshall Group
FAQs
What stage of development the business needs to be at? Is it enough to have 'just' an idea or should the business be already up and running?
- Applications can be at any stage. The application is the equivalent to an elevator pitch, so the business can be at very early development stage
- In the application we would like to know how you intend to use the prize money. This is for the judges but also a useful thing to start thinking about when creating your pitch
- For the presentation, successful applicants will need to go into more depth, having done adequate market research into their chosen fields and develop financial projections
What are the judges looking for in the application?
- We have had all sorts of applications in the past – you can see examples here including interviews with past winners on their experience of the competition
- The judges look at a variety of criteria but ultimately select the business idea with the most potential to be successful
What are the judges looking for in the presentation?
- The ‘How to pitch your idea’ training session with Dr Richard Parmee in February 2025 will help you prepare your presentation
How long should the presentation be?
- Presentations should be 10 minutes long and will be followed by 10 minutes of questions from the judges. You can use slides. Questions from the audience will be taken at the end