Two companies supported by Incubation win regional awards

Two companies that were tutored and supported by Ravensbourne’s Incubation programme have been named as winners at the Best of Royal Greenwich Business Awards 2021.

We are thrilled that F5 Films and Unaji & Co were chosen as joint winners in the Young Entrepreneur category of the awards. The pair were among six finalists in the running for the award, selected out of over 200 entries.

Both companies joined Ravensbourne’s Incubation programme last year as SEEDS and Incubation Lite Award winners. Incubation is a friendly collective that provides tailor-made support and mentoring to graduates, start-ups and growing businesses. Based in our Institute for Creativity and Technology, it gives businesses extensive commercial support, creates networking opportunities, offers branding expertise and provides office space.

Incubation is helmed by the Head of Enterprise & Innovation, Ha Smith. Ha's enterprise and incubation experience spans over 20 years; she has supported hundreds of businesses in both university and commercial innovation centres.

The Royal Greenwich Business Awards celebrates businesses local to the Greenwich borough. The 2021 awards particularly recognise the difficulties that businesses had to overcome in the last 18 months, given the challenges of the pandemic.

F5 Films is a production company going from strength to strength – it has already produced several award-winning films. Its body of work spans commercials, music videos, documentaries and narrative films. Its director, Tara Trangmar, specialises in creative and ethical content, and a core ethos of the company is to ‘give an equal voice to all’, both in front of and behind the camera.

Unaji & Co is a creative consultancy company co-founded by brothers Emmanuel and Lemuel Unaji. Thanks to its unique business model that combines sustainable fashion, advertising and fine art, it has already amassed an impressive number of clients and projects. The company offers brand strategy, content creation, merchandise design, project management and more – all with its distinctive signature style.

The prizes were presented at an awards ceremony on Friday 22 October 2021, which was held at the InterContinental Hotel in the O2 – a stone’s throw away from the Ravensbourne building.

This is the third consecutive year that Incubation companies have been shortlisted at the awards. Ha Smith said: “This year in all the categories there were some great contenders shortlisted and it is a brilliant achievement that our businesses have won two awards.”

Sunita Bhuwanee, Business Support Manager at Incubation, said: “Incubation has been very supportive and engaged fully to encourage both companies to prepare and submit their Young Entrepreneur applications. We are proud that both companies have been rewarded for their hard work and passion.”