The founders
Deepak Pathak & David Bozward
Sky High Ventures was founded by two people who have spent much of their careers working at the intersection of entrepreneurship, business growth and education.
We’ve built businesses ourselves. We’ve worked with entrepreneurs. We’ve helped companies scale. We’ve worked inside large organisations. We’ve taught strategy and entrepreneurship at university.
And, importantly, we’ve seen what happens when talented people are given the right opportunity at the right time.
Sky High brings that experience together in a programme designed specifically to help exceptional students make that transition from potential to founder.
Chairman
Deepak Pathak
Deepak has spent his career working with businesses at different stages of their development, from early-stage ventures through to companies operating at significant scale.
Earlier in his career, he was personally selected by the CEO of one of Europe’s largest retail organisations to become his understudy. That gave him unusual exposure to board-level decision making and the operation of a business with billion-pound turnover.
He has built businesses of his own and personally raised funding. During four years at Innovate UK (the UK Government’s official innovation body), he worked with more than 100 ambitious companies, helping businesses that were often at very early stages develop and scale.
Some of those companies went on to achieve eight-figure revenues. Others went on to major exits, including nine-figure outcomes, while several were subsequently recognised as potential future UK unicorns. His contribution to that work was recognised when Innovate UK gave him its first Unsung Hero Award.
Deepak used to teach MBA Business Strategy, Business Planning, Leadership and Communication at university. He was recognised as the university’s best lecturer every year he taught there.
Deepak has also represented the UK on numerous foreign visits on behalf of the government and Chamber of Commerce. This includes accompanying MPs and regional mayors where he has been responsible for the business delegations on these market visits.
Most recently he has become European Ambassdor for Singapore Piece Capital, a Venture Capital company specialising in taking unused IP from Fortune 500s and giving them to startups. He has been instrumental in placing IP/Patents from Panasonic, Denso, NEC and more into British companies so they can exploit and commercialise them for mutual benefit. Deepak focuses on strategic activities in UK/Europe and is assisting the launch of their upcoming VC fund in UK, which he will lead.
Deepak has also been recognised by the King and Queen of England where he was awarded ’Coronation Champion’ for his work leading Sewa Day’s 4000+ volunteers during covid and feeding millions of meals worth of food to those in need coupled with a long history of voluntary work. He is a firm believer that giving back is a key tenant of good business.
Deepak firmly believes the next big unicorns sit within university students, and that the right teams bring great results at speed — which is why Sky High Ventures helps create high-performing teams.
That combination of commercial experience and teaching is central to the way Sky High operates. The objective isn’t simply to tell students what to do. It’s to give them the frameworks, experience and challenge they need to make good decisions themselves.
Principal Director
David Bozward
Dr David Bozward brings more than 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship, venture creation, business growth and higher education. His career has centred on a single question: how can talented people be given the opportunity, knowledge and environment required to build exceptional businesses?
David’s practical experience comes from building companies himself. As co-founder of The Paradyme Group, he helped grow the business to 50 employees and £1 million in turnover. He also co-founded Blue Sphere Games, which sold games through more than 120 international partners. These ventures gave him first-hand experience of finding customers, developing teams, managing growth and turning an ambitious idea into a commercially viable company.
His work in higher education has focused on making entrepreneurship practical, demanding and capable of producing measurable outcomes. David has served as a university Head of School and Head of Entrepreneurship, launched an entrepreneurship degree, established a university incubator and led award-winning enterprise provision.
As Director of Employability and Entrepreneurship at Global Banking School, David led a 52-person team supporting more than 38,000 students. Under his leadership, the operation supported over 4,500 student entrepreneurs and helped launch more than 600 ventures.
Through his work with Innovate UK Midlands, David has also advised ambitious companies on innovation, commercialisation, funding, investment readiness, partnerships and scale. This gives him a clear understanding of what separates an interesting idea from a venture capable of attracting customers, capital and exceptional people.
David’s contribution to entrepreneurship has been recognised through his inclusion in the Maserati 100 and a Lifetime Fellowship of the Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs.
At Sky High Ventures, David brings together his experience as a founder, educator and growth adviser. His focus is on identifying exceptional potential early, placing students in serious commercial ventures and helping them develop the judgement, discipline and ambition required to build at scale.
David believes students should not have to wait until graduation to discover what they are capable of. Given the right opportunity, founding team and environment, they can begin building the next generation of significant British companies today.
Track record
We've seen what exceptional students can do.
£70,000
generated by one student business over a single summer
Millions
in value created by companies our students went on to build
100+
ambitious companies supported at Innovate UK
Those experiences reinforced something we already believed: the gap between a capable student and a capable founder is often much smaller than people think. What is frequently missing is the opportunity to apply what they know to something real.
We don’t believe exceptional students should have to wait until graduation to find out what they’re capable of.
Why we built Sky High
We think there is another way.
The traditional route into entrepreneurship asks people to come up with an idea, find a team, learn how to build a company and somehow figure out the rest as they go.
Find exceptional people early. Give them access to real opportunities. Put them in strong teams. Give them serious education and experienced guidance. Then give them responsibility for building the business.
But our ambition goes beyond creating good student businesses.
We are building Sky High as a venture studio, looking for opportunities and founders with the potential to build £100m+ turnover companies and ultimately much larger businesses.
We want to build companies that can matter at scale.
10 unicorns in 10 years.