Participated · Equity · Aug 2026

Verascient constructs enterprise infrastructure that turns dispersed institutional knowledge across documents, emails, meetings, spreadsheets and internal systems into a shared, queryable context for AI agents. At the core of its product is a temporal knowledge graph that preserves history, permissions and provenance while making organizational information available to agents. The company pairs this infrastructure with in-house AI engineers who work alongside client teams to deploy AI workflows and agents inside existing systems and access controls. Verascient is initially targeting clients in financial services, insurance and logistics, sectors it says hold large volumes of disconnected institutional knowledge. The startup plans to use its new funding to hire a small engineering team and scale its technology to support more enterprise deployments. Founders Emile Ferreira and Keagan Stokoe bring prior technical and operational experience, with Ferreira holding an MPhil from Cambridge and Stokoe having founded prior companies and consultancies.

Participated · Seed · Jun 2026

Houdini Bio was founded in 2025 out of Cambridge research and applies machine learning-driven software to redesign therapeutic DNA so it avoids silencing by the cell's defence machinery. The company aims to increase durability of gene and cell therapies by predicting and engineering DNA sequences that bypass the HUSH complex. Houdini Bio reports preclinical data showing more than tenfold increases in gene expression relative to current leading approaches and says it reached technical milestones in a third of the expected time. Founders include Jonathan Cohen-Gold, who discovered the molecular workaround during his PhD at the University of Cambridge, and Lee Dunham, formerly of the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult. Financially, the startup has secured roughly £1.5M via a mix of non-dilutive grants and an oversubscribed pre-seed round. Houdini Bio plans to use the funds to grow its team and establish co-development partnerships with pharmaceutical companies.

Participated · Seed · May 2026

Hacktron builds an AI-driven platform that continuously runs attacker-style security tests on every pull request and code change to find deep, exploitable vulnerabilities and reduce false positives. The company's team of founders comes from competitive hacking backgrounds with wins at DEF CON CTF and presentations at major security conferences. Hacktron has responsibly disclosed vulnerabilities in widely used software and infrastructure, including BeyondTrust Remote Support, Next.js, Cloudflare, GitHub, GitLab, and the OAuth2 Proxy project. It has performed security testing engagements for companies such as Perplexity AI and Supabase and maintains a public advisories database. The company generated about $240,000 in revenue in its first nine months. Hacktron plans to use the new funding to grow engineering and research headcount, speed product development, and scale its go-to-market activities.

Participated · Seed · May 2026

Barocal’s core technology uses inexpensive solid organic materials that heat when compressed and cool when released; the company transfers heat by flowing water past these materials and routing it to a radiator. Early prototypes have demonstrated performance comparable to conventional refrigerator compressors and the technology does not rely on gaseous refrigerants, avoiding leak-related climate impacts. The startup emphasizes potential energy-efficiency benefits and plans to prioritize larger commercial HVAC and refrigeration systems initially. The technology originates from research by founder Xavier Moya while he was a materials physics professor at the University of Cambridge. Barocal has secured a $10 million seed round to ready the technology for market. The company is positioning its solution as an alternative to vapor-compression systems used today.

Participated · Seed · Apr 2026

Auryx builds a software platform that analyzes acoustic signals from the heart, lungs, and blood flow using microphones embedded in everyday consumer hardware. The company’s approach focuses initially on earbuds, leveraging the relative stability of the ear to capture cleaner physiological signals than wrist-based optical sensors. Auryx’s acoustic sensing can extract metrics beyond heart rate, including respiratory rate, cardiac output, and blood pressure according to the company. The founding team comprises researchers from the University of Cambridge, including CEO Erika Bondareva, CTO Kayla-Jade Butkow, and Chief Scientific Officer Professor Cecilia Mascolo. Auryx recently raised $2 million in pre-seed funding to accelerate hardware integration, model development, commercial partnerships, and team expansion. The company plans to expand from earbuds to other microphone-equipped devices and additional health applications.