Meet the A2I cohort
Emulate: turning research into a real-world product
Transformative, challenging, empowering. That’s how one of Emulate’s co-founder Barbara Draghi described her time at the A2I Boot Camp. As a Machine Learning Specialist at MHRA/CPRD, Barbara has spent the past five years and a half developing synthetic data solutions for real-world healthcare data alongside her colleagues - and Emulate’s co-founders - Zhenchen Wang and Ylenia Rotalinti. They are currently taking part in Accelerate to Investment (A2I), a 5-month hybrid programme designed to help researchers and innovators within government research organisations to build the fundamentals needed to develop credible, investment-ready spinout opportunities.
We caught up with Barbara to get her take on the A2I journey so far - in her own words. Take it away Barbara!
Author: Barbara Draghi, Machine Learning Specialist at MHRA
Meet Emulate, public research turned commercial enterprise
Emulate is tackling a well-known problem: the organisations sitting on the most valuable data - hospitals, pharma companies, government departments, banks - are often the least able to use it. Governance, compliance, privacy, and reputational risks keep datasets locked down and unshareable.
Emulate has built a trusted synthetic data platform to help organisations safely generate and use realistic synthetic data. Built from experience working with highly regulated healthcare data environments such as CPRD, part of the UK MHRA, the platform combines advanced research with a strong governance mindset. The use cases can stretch across healthcare, pharma, finance, insurance, and research - anywhere teams need to run exploratory analysis, develop AI models, test software or collaborate without the friction of using real-world data.
Joining the A2I programme
My fellow co-founders Ylenia, Zhenchen and I decided to apply to the A2I programme because we recognised the value of what we’d developed from a technical perspective, and saw an opportunity to turn it into something with real-world impact beyond research.
Coming from technical, public-sector backgrounds, we knew it was something that could address a genuine problem for organisations working with sensitive data, but we needed to engage the right support to help us shape it into a product, business, and ultimately, an investible spin-out. The programme is giving us the opportunity to explore that path and better understand how to turn our vision into reality.
At the Boot Camp
The two Boot Camp days have had a strong impact on both of us. Every session brought something valuable, but the most impactful were Entrepreneurial Mindset and Product-Market Fit for Scale. The first helped us to recognise our strengths and start seeing ourselves differently as founders, not only as technical people. The second triggered one of the biggest mindset shifts for us: the idea that you must “build a product for your customers, not find customers for your product.” That completely changed the way we think about developing and positioning Emulate.
From that point onward, it created a sort of snowball effect; we now naturally think about Emulate not only as a technical solution, but as a real business with customers, market needs, and long-term impact.
The delivery team was incredibly effective at bringing out the entrepreneurial mindset in participants, especially for teams like ours coming from a technical and research background.
The ‘lightbulb’ moment
Our biggest lightbulb moment was realising that until now, we probably hadn't been asking potential customers the right questions.
In the past, we often approached conversations with assumptions about the problem and the value of the technology, without always properly testing those assumptions. The Boot Camp made us realise the importance of asking more targeted questions with the specific goal of understanding real customer needs, pain points, and adoption barriers.
It helped us understand that validating assumptions is a critical part of building Emulate. If some of our assumptions turn out to be wrong, it does not mean the idea fails, but it may mean the product needs to evolve in a different direction - based on what customers actually need.
Being part of a diverse network
The mix of partners involved in the programme has been incredibly valuable for us, and one of the best parts of the experience so far. We feel very lucky to be surrounded by such a strong network of people supporting us from different perspectives.
Having Laura from GoTT supporting us throughout the journey has been extremely important, because she has really helped guide us step by step and made the whole process feel much less overwhelming.
The Boot Camp sessions led by Jodie and Mike from E-Spark had a huge impact on us. They really helped shape our mindset and pushed us to start thinking like founders, not only as technical people.
Since then, the regular meetings with Catherine and Mark have been incredibly valuable in helping us turn that mindset shift into something more concrete and operational. What makes their support particularly meaningful for us is that they are entrepreneurs themselves, so it genuinely feels like learning from people who have already been through this journey before. As first-time founders, that reassurance means a lot, because sometimes building a spin-out can feel a bit like navigating a jungle without a compass.
At the same time, having access to Sakura’s perspective has also been extremely valuable because she brings the investor side to the table. She helps us better understand what investors expect to see, what makes a company investable, and where we need to grow and improve as a business.
Last but definitely not least, being part of a cohort with other founders has also been a really important part of the experience. Hearing other people’s stories, seeing what they are building and sharing challenges and progress with teams at similar stages makes the whole journey feel much more real, tangible, and collaborative.
The next phase
Right now, we’re actively building all of the different pieces needed to make this happen. Every workshop, conversation, and meeting gives us another piece of the puzzle, whether that is understanding customers better, improving our positioning, thinking about investment readiness, or learning how to structure a company properly.
For example, during the last workshop we learned much more about data rooms and what investors expect to see. Since then, we’ve started having more targeted conversations, organising material more strategically, and thinking much more concretely about what we need to put in place over the coming months.
We’ve also spent a lot more time trying to understand who our customers really are, which markets may be the best fit for Emulate, and what different organisations actually value most. We are still actively exploring this, and we are also starting a commercial pilot which we hope will help us gather more concrete insights.
Looking to the future
I was asked to imagine what will be different for Emulate in 12-18 months time if A2I goes well for us, and to be honest it’s hard to define that, because the programme is already having such a huge impact! Developing this entrepreneurial mindset and starting to see Emulate as a real business opportunity has already been a big win for us.
With that said, we’d of course love to see Emulate become a real spin-out and reach a stage where it is investable and ready to grow further in 12-18 months’ time. What matters most though, is continuing to move in the right direction, learning to build something sustainable and impactful beyond the technical side of the platform.
This is a really exciting time for Ylenia, Zhenchen and I. It genuinely feels like we are building the foundations that could eventually allow Emulate to become a real and sustainable spin-out.
A2I is a UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S) initiative, delivered by E-Spark and developed to build on the work of the Government Office for Technology Transfer (GOTT) in strengthening public sector innovation and commercialisation. If you would like to register your interest in joining the next cohort please click the link here: