Participated · Equity · Aug 2026

Gaia Learning was founded by Kate Heath after building a solution to support her neurodivergent daughter and has grown into a 24-person national online alternative provision for children with additional needs. Its core offering includes tailored education services and Bloom, an SEND infrastructure platform that helps schools deliver, track and evidence student support. Bloom is in pilot in Northern Ireland with more school pilots beginning in September and plans for international expansion. The company has a strategic partnership with Pearson Edexcel. Following its first post-accelerator investment, Gaia Learning reported 94% revenue growth while costs rose 22%, and it is forecasting 60% growth for the year ending January 2027. The founder and company have received recognition including the Great British Entrepreneur Award 2025 – Technology Entrepreneur (North West).

Participated · Seed · Jul 2026

Furbnow operates a platform focused on enabling home energy-efficiency retrofits, connecting homeowners with retrofit services and solutions. The company aims to scale its platform following a £2.5m seed raise to grow its operations in the retrofit market. The seed financing brought together institutional investors and angels to support that expansion. Public reporting names Richard Parker and Paul Nevin in connection with the company. The articles do not disclose revenue, user counts, or valuation information.

Participated · Equity · May 2026

AirEx, launched in 2020, develops the first smart air brick technology that uses sensors to monitor conditions and regulate airflow under floors to reduce heat loss. Its product aims to improve energy performance and resident health without requiring expensive or disruptive interventions. AirEx has established commercial partnerships with dozens of housing providers and Tier 1 contractors, including Warmworks, Peabody and Together Housing. To date the company reports over 39,000 smart air bricks installed across more than 6,400 homes, delivering an estimated £40 million in lifetime energy bill savings for households in fuel poverty and more than 40,000 tonnes of lifetime carbon emissions abatement. The company plans to use the £2.1 million funding to accelerate large-scale deployment, develop new products and expand into new partnerships and broader market rollout. AirEx positions itself to scale commercially alongside government retrofit funding and social housing upgrade programmes.

Participated · Equity · Apr 2026

Third Space Learning operates a large-scale one-to-one maths tutoring service, reporting support for about 196,000 students across more than 4,200 schools and delivering millions of hours of tutoring. Its spoken AI tutor Skye is built from a decade of tutoring practice and designed around human tutoring techniques such as dialogue, pacing, targeted questioning and ongoing assessment. The company emphasizes an evidence-led approach, using operational data and pedagogical design that underpin its human tutoring service to inform Skye’s development. Third Space Learning has a research partnership funded with $1.9m from the Gates Foundation and run with Stanford University and Cornell University to validate development in US public schools. With the £4.4m growth raise, the company plans to deepen Skye’s capabilities, expand into new subjects and languages, and build a dedicated US function to support international growth. The business positions itself as combining rigorous evaluation with scalable classroom distribution as it seeks broader adoption in the UK and US education markets.

Participated · Equity · Mar 2025

Mixergy develops grid-connected smart hot water tanks that act as distributed energy storage, optimizing energy use and enabling better integration of renewable power. Its technology is said to cut hot water bills substantially (the article cites reductions up to 60% in one place and up to 40% for its top-down heating approach). The company offers hardware, software and a Mixergy App that uses machine learning to optimise consumption, and has an integrated hot-water heat pump with regulatory approval. Mixergy plans to pivot toward a technology-licensing and strategic-partnership model focused on new builds, social housing retrofits and commercial properties, and to expand R&D capabilities. It has partnerships with energy companies including British Gas and targets social housing providers, property developers, energy utilities and HVAC OEMs. The company positions its tanks to store cheap or excess renewable energy and ease grid pressure during peak demand, supporting UK net-zero goals. Mixergy was founded at Oxford University and emphasizes reducing carbon emissions while cutting household costs. Mixergy is a Cassington, UK-based developer of smart and connected hot water tanks and home energy management technologies. The company holds a suite of IP around hot water heating, heat pump and home energy management, including a patented approach that exploits thermal stratification to heat only what users need. Its smart tanks enable households to save money and reduce their environmental impact. Mixergy also connects a decentralized digital network of tanks that can provide flexibility to the grid and support the clean energy transition. Led by CEO Peter Armstrong, the company plans to use new funds to open an R&D centre at its Oxfordshire headquarters, further develop its technology, and pursue international expansion beginning in Portugal. Mixergy raised £9.2M in the disclosed funding round. Mixergy develops residential smart hot water tanks that use machine learning and engineering to heat only the water a user needs. Its tanks can save residents up to 20% on hot water bills, provide up to 30% more usable hot water, and deliver hot water up to five times faster. The product is the first hot water product certified to deliver grid‑balancing services to the UK National Grid and can be controlled via sensors and software across a national network dubbed the “Internet of Tanks.” Mixergy is a 2014 spin‑out from the University of Oxford’s Energy and Power Group and has partnered with British Gas to launch and roll out products to households. The company says it plans to expand across the UK, Western Europe and North America and to leverage low‑cost manufacturing supply chains to address a global market.