Participated · Series A · Feb 2026

Sparxell is a University of Cambridge spin-out that engineers bioinspired colour materials made entirely from cellulose sourced from wood pulp. By assembling cellulose crystals into precise microstructures, the company creates structural colours that reflect specific wavelengths of light, mimicking the vivid hues found in butterfly wings. Its platform targets fashion, textiles and other industries looking to replace petroleum-based chemicals, synthetic dyes, heavy metals and mineral pigments with environmentally safer alternatives. The materials are fully bio-based, non-toxic and biodegradable, meeting rising sustainability and regulatory requirements in Europe. Sparxell is currently operating at pilot-scale manufacturing and plans to reach industrial-scale production by 2026. The company has attracted strategic interest from consumer brands seeking high-performance, sustainable colour solutions. A recent €4.2 million pre-Series A financing provides the capital to accelerate scale-up and commercialization efforts.

Participated · Equity · Dec 2025

BASALT has built a SaaS platform that structures the engineering of AI agents around a continuous loop of experimentation, evaluation and production monitoring. The software lets technical teams test prompt variants, compare models, analyse edge-cases and document results while giving business experts a workspace to define quality criteria and validate scenarios. By centralising this workflow, the tool helps companies avoid regressions, improve agent reliability and surface production issues that only appear in real-world contexts. A second pillar of the product is fine-grained monitoring, which detects problematic responses in production and automatically feeds them back into new test scenarios. Founded by Guillaume Marquis and François de Fitte, the company is headquartered in San Francisco with its technical team in Paris. The newly secured capital will be used to accelerate product development and support hiring in both France and the United States. No revenue or user figures were disclosed in the articles.