Entrepreneurship and Management students Tom Young and Fraser Williams, both 20, visited Google, Stanford University and renowned tech business incubators such as Startup Basecamp and Founders Space Accelerator.

In addition, they held promising talks with venture capital investors to seed-fund their closely-guarded business idea, which they say will be a "revolutionary technology tool for students" when it launches later this year.

Fraser said: “We learned a great deal from the trip.

"One of the biggest lessons was that investors care a lot more about the team they are potentially investing in than the product.

"Essentially, you can’t be a success without a strong team and having a good team behind you helps open doors.”

Tom said: “The trip to Silicon Valley was without doubt the most intense period of learning either of us have done.

"It was a very worthwhile experience and we are now in a much stronger position to launch our business.”

The duo were supported on their trip by the Lancaster University Enterprise Centre, Lancashire County Council, Santander UK and Lancaster University’s Department of Entrepreneurship, Strategy and Innovation.