Project Management Software for Technology Startups in Cambridge
A Cambridge spinout usually starts as two or three people and a research finding, on a grant-funded budget that doesn't stretch to five separate tools.
A research result, and not much else yet
Silicon Fen has been turning university research into companies for decades, from software spinouts to the biotech and life sciences firms clustered around Cambridge Science Park. Almost all of them start the same way: two or three people, a research finding worth commercialising, and a budget that's either grant-funded or rationed against a short runway. There isn't a marketing department or an ops hire yet, there's a founder deciding whether the next few hours go toward the product, a grant application, or the first candidate interview.
That's the actual shape of an early Cambridge startup, whatever the science underneath it looks like. Software bought at that stage has to work for whoever's covering which job that week, not for departments that don't exist yet, and it has to survive a budget review that a grant-funded team takes more seriously than most.
ShipSprint's Free plan covers 5 users and 2 projects, permanently, which is enough for a lot of pre-seed spinouts to run entirely without a software line item. Past that, one subscription handles engineering, hiring, marketing and operations together, so growth doesn't mean shopping for four separate tools on a budget that was tight to begin with.
Nobody on a two-person spinout has time to read a whole project before deciding what to do next, so the workspace opens straight to "my day": today's items, a five-second time log, and one tap to say "I'm blocked", pulling in whoever can actually help rather than a message that waits until someone next checks their inbox.
What an early spinout actually needs
5 users and 2 projects, free permanently, not a trial that expires right when the science starts working.
Engineering, hiring, marketing and operations each get their own board and vocabulary, so a grant-funded team doesn't have four line items on next year's budget where one would do.
No onboarding call, no configuration project. A board is ready to use within a minute of signing up.
Why an approach was chosen, or ruled out, usually only lives in one person's memory. The wiki keeps it next to the work, with history, so it survives a founder's next hire.
Everyone opens to "my day": today's items, a five-second time log, and one tap to flag being blocked, pulling in whoever can actually unblock it.
Free that's actually usable, not a fortnight's preview
A lot of software aimed at early spinouts offers a trial rather than a real free tier: a couple of weeks of full access, then a paywall exactly when a milestone review or a grant deadline is bearing down. For a team watching runway to the month, that's a poor trade, since the tool becomes another thing to budget for right when budgeting is hardest.
ShipSprint's Free plan doesn't expire. Five users and two projects stay free for as long as the team is that size, with the same boards, time logging and wiki a paying team uses, not a limited preview. When the spinout grows past its founding team, Team is priced per seat with everything included, so there's no separate line item for time tracking or the wiki discovered after the fact.
ShipSprint is built by Quantuva Technologies Pvt. Ltd., registered in India, and billed in rupees. That's a fact about invoicing, not a claim of UK presence or local support hours. Charges convert at your card provider's rate on the day, and there's no VAT added or handled on our end, so check with whoever does your books how that's treated for a grant-funded entity.
It's worth being just as direct about what's tracked and what isn't. There are no screenshots, no keystroke logging and no activity tracking on any plan. A scorecard built from delivered work and logged hours, adjusted for leave, belongs to the researcher it describes, not to whoever happens to be writing the next grant report.
Questions from Cambridge spinouts
It doesn't run out. Up to 5 users and 2 projects, permanently, with the same product a paying team gets at that scope. A lot of pre-seed spinouts run their whole first phase of research and product work on it.
Only when you need it. Start with the engineering or research board, and add a hiring pipeline whenever the first real hire is on the horizon. Both live in the same subscription, so there's nothing to migrate later.
No. There are no screenshots, no keystroke logging and no activity tracking of any kind. Time logging exists so a person can record their own hours in about five seconds, useful for grant reporting, and only that person sees their own scorecard by default.
Team is ₹299 per user per month, roughly £2.70 to £3, or ₹2,899 per user per year, up to 40 users. Business is ₹599 per user per month, adding forecasts, scorecards, the owner command center, priority support, unlimited projects and SSO. Every paid plan opens with a 14-day full-access trial, no card required. Details are on the pricing page.
Related pages
See it on your own work.
A workspace your whole company will actually use is 60 seconds away. No card, no risk, nothing to install.
14-day full-access trial · sample project included · no card required