Christ Church student’s quantum clock startup takes top prize at Reuben Entrepreneurship Forum

Cloq took the top prize at the Forum, now in its fourth year, with the pitch delivered by teammate David McMahon, a DPhil student in Atomic and Laser Physics. The win builds on Cloq's second-place finish at Oxford Edge's StEP Demo Day last month and comes as the team prepares for its next pitch at Stage Two in Berlin this October.

It was at StEP, Oxford Edge's eight-week educational accelerator run jointly with Oxford University Innovation (OUI), that Joel met his three co-founders: David; Aria Puri, a final-year physics undergraduate; and Yuanzhu Wang, a second-year engineer. The four gravitated to the same project among those on offer, a University of Oxford patent for a compact, low-cost quantum clock developed by Professor Arzhang Ardavan and colleagues in the Department of Physics. Built around a nitrogen atom trapped inside a buckminsterfullerene molecule, or "buckyball," the technology brings high-precision timing to industries currently priced out of it.

Joel, who is entering the fourth year of his integrated master's in Physics, first came into contact with Oxford Edge, a Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation for the University of Oxford, through Entrepreneurship for Physicists, an in-curricular course also taken, a year apart, by his future teammate Aria. Oxford Edge was launched by Christ Church in 2025, the College's 500th year.

At StEP's Demo Day, held at the Life and Mind Building, Cloq was named one of three winning teams from a cohort of nine, taking a £5,000 prize and securing a place at Stage Two in Berlin, Europe's largest university venture competition, where they will pitch again in October. Reflecting on the past few months, Joel said, ‘The opportunity to explore and work on Oxford IP, with the guidance of the amazing, committed mentors at Oxford Edge, has been invaluable. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed developing my skills in such a positive environment and I’m excited to see where we can take Cloq next’.

Cloq will now represent the University of Oxford at Stage Two while continuing to validate the strongest applications with potential customers. Joel's route there, from a single undergraduate course to a prize-winning startup, demonstrates how Oxford Edge supports students across the University, offering entrepreneurial education and practical support to help a promising idea grow.

^{Photograph by Simon Devenport}