Co-founder of Southampton software startup picks up fellowship from Royal Academy of Engineering

A startup co-founder who featured in the University of Southampton’s latest Future Worlds cohort has been awarded a prestigious enterprise fellowship by the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng).

Dr Oscar Festa was granted the fellowship for his work on Xmoor, which uses innovative proprietary software tools to provide concept screening for floating offshore wind moorings – a pain point in a rapidly growing sector.

Oscar is a recent PhD graduate from the University of Southampton and specialises in interfacing novel machine learning methods with traditional offshore analysis.

Formerly known as Instamoor, Xmoor helps its customers cut costs, produce more efficient designs and ultimately focus on ‘real engineering’.

“Winning this fellowship and the support of the Royal Academy of Engineering will enable me to forge ahead with Xmoor,” said Oscar.

“I’m really appreciative of all the support I’ve received to get to this point.

“It’s provided a great foundation for future growth in a sector that’s critical in the move to net zero.”

Future Worlds is the University of Southampton’s on-campus startup accelerator.

Dr Alice Iles, head of tech acceleration for Future Worlds, added: “This is great news for Oscar, Xmoor and the university.

“We’ve built up a strong record of supporting successful applications in what is a very specialised fellowship.

“It’s always fantastic to see researchers grow into successful startup founders.”

The RAEng’s Enterprise Fellowship is awarded to the most promising entrepreneurial engineers in the UK and from overseas.

Successful applicants are supported by the academy’s enterprise hub, which draws on the expertise of its fellows.

The fellowship follows on from Oscar’s recent success in securing follow-on funding through the Innovation-to-Commercialisation of University Research (ICURe) programme.

• futureworlds.com