Hi everyone,
I know this forum is primarily focused on the Global Talent Visa, but I’ve seen the quality of feedback here and was hoping the community might offer some perspective on my Innovator Founder Visa application — particularly from those with technical backgrounds who can evaluate whether my innovation claim is credible and well-evidenced.
Who I am
I’m SunnyPatel, a software engineer based in London. I have an MSc in Big Data Technologies from the University of East London (2024), where my dissertation focused on privacy-preserving analytics using homomorphic encryption in healthcare settings. I have 2 years of professional software engineering experience at Verve Systems (India) before moving to the UK.
**The business — ObfusCora Ltd **
I founded ObfusCora Ltd in February 2025. It is a B2B SaaS platform that uses Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) to enable regulated financial organisations to run analytics — credit risk scoring, fraud detection, AML screening — directly on encrypted data, without ever decrypting it during computation.
The core innovation is not inventing new cryptography. It is operationalising FHE into a pilot-ready, template-driven analytics platform with an end-to-end workflow: secure data ingestion, intelligent column mapping, asynchronous job orchestration via Celery/Redis, encrypted execution using OpenFHE (BGV/CKKS/BFV schemes), and results delivery via REST API. The platform is built on FastAPI backend, React + TypeScript frontend, PostgreSQL and Docker.
Current technical status — honestly stated:
- 1,200+ automated tests passing
- 5 fintech analytics templates (credit risk, fraud detection, AML screening, loan prediction, mortgage origination)
- Intelligent column mapping with 80+ field synonyms and fuzzy matching
- Hardware acceleration (GPU/CPU) and FHE batching implemented
- Full stack containerised with Docker Compose
What I’ve submitted to UKES
- Full 20-section business plan (~15,000 words) covering innovation, viability, scalability, competitive analysis, GTM, risks, compliance roadmap, IP strategy
- 6-sheet financial model (P&L, scenario analysis, cash flow, balance sheet, employment plan, assumptions & notes) — all cross-referenced and verified
- Updated CV showing the academic-to-founder journey
- All figures consistent across every document
My specific questions for the community
- The UKES innovation criterion requires the business to be genuinely innovative, not just a good product. Does operationalising FHE into a template-driven SaaS platform — rather than inventing new cryptography — read as sufficiently innovative? Or does it sound like productization of existing open-source work (OpenFHE) without enough novel contribution?
- My biggest weakness is zero commercial traction — no pilots signed, no LOIs, no paying customers. I have structured the plan around a free pilot go-to-market strategy (Year 1 = £0 revenue deliberately). Is this likely to be a blocker for UKES, or is it acceptable for an early-stage founder if the reasoning is well-evidenced?
- The financial model shows losses in Year 1 and Year 2, with profitability only in Year 3. UKES requires the business to be “viable.” Does showing planned losses with a credible path to Year 3 profitability satisfy viability, in your experience? Or does UKES expect earlier positive cashflow?
- My academic background (MSc dissertation on homomorphic encryption) directly connects to what I am building. Is this type of academic-to-founder narrative generally viewed positively by endorsing bodies, or does it need to be supplemented with more industry evidence?
Any feedback — including honest critique — is genuinely appreciated. I would rather know the weak points now than after submission.
Thank you for reading this far.