UCL Advances

The Sport Review and Zooza are to become the 2nd and 3rd companies to be based in the UCL Advances Student Hatchery. The purpose of the hatchery is to provide a base for new student led businesses when they first need it and to help prepare them for their upcoming life as full grown businesses in the outside world.

The Sport Review is a UK-based website founded in 2008 with the simple aim of providing an independent, in-depth look at the world’s major sporting stories. The writers are passionate about sport and they strive to embed this within all of the content they produce.

TSR’s first article was published on 16 November 2008, and the website has since evolved from little more than a simple blog into to a fully-fledged international sports news website.

Martin Caparrotta, Founder of ‘The Sport Review’ said: "Being able to use the UCL Advances student hatchery will give The Sport Review a much-needed base from which we can hopefully drive the business to the next level."

ZOOZA is an original online commerce platform known for its quirky and light-hearted approach to marketing and its unusual sales model - hosting just one deal each day. This model allows customers to benefit from extremely low prices, usually for electronics, while suppliers are able to reduce their excess stock - a notable problem in the industry.

"We have now been using the UCL Advances Hatchery for a month and it has been a very positive experience. Not only did the Hatchery provide a physical grounding with readily available support, it has also allowed us to register our business under a UCL address, bringing a substantial boost to our credibility." Tim Yusupov, Founder, Zooza.

Both ZOOZA and The Sport Review were recipients of a UCL Bright Ideas Award 2010.

Martin Caparrotta, Founder of ‘The Sport Review’ comments: "The UCL Bright Ideas prize will enable us to ensure we have the technical capabilities to cope with increasing traffic to the website. We are hoping to have attracted one million visits by the end of the year so having a powerful and reliable server is absolutely crucial."

Other student ventures UCL Advances are highlighting can be found at: www.ucl.ac.uk/advances/studentventures.