Participated · Equity · Oct 2024

Diffblue, founded by researchers from the University of Oxford and based in Oxford, England, builds reinforcement learning–powered AI tools to automate unit test generation. Its flagship product, Diffblue Cover, autonomously generates unit tests that are guaranteed to compile and pass while delivering high coverage and test strength. The company combines reinforcement learning with code execution to refine outputs, reduce hallucinations, and improve accuracy versus traditional LLM approaches. Diffblue says Cover can write unit tests up to 250x faster than a human developer and is used by customers including Citi, ING, Workday, S&P Global, and BNY. Through participation in the ITEA GENIUS project, Diffblue plans to develop tools and processes to automate complex software-engineering tasks, improve software quality, and accelerate development cycles. The company recently received a £1 million grant from Innovate UK to accelerate enhancements to its reinforcement learning–powered solutions for autonomous test code generation. Diffblue builds Diffblue Cover, an autonomous generative AI-for-code product that automates unit test generation using reinforcement learning techniques rather than LLM-based coding assistants. The company says this differentiated approach helps avoid accuracy, security, privacy, and liability concerns associated with LLMs. Diffblue Cover aims to improve code quality, expand test coverage, and increase engineering efficiency so teams can ship software faster and with fewer defects. Today Diffblue serves four of the 10 largest U.S. banks and several other members of the Forbes Global 2000; customers include Citi, ING, Cisco, AstraZeneca, and BNY Mellon. The company is led by CEO Toffer Winslow. Diffblue intends to use the new funding to expand operations and accelerate development of its product. Diffblue provides autonomous AI-for-code software that helps software teams improve code quality, expand test coverage and increase productivity. The company, led by CEO Mathew Lodge, offers a newly launched version that can autonomously write and maintain unit test suites for entire applications and automatically refactor Java code to improve testability. Its solution also slashes the time and cost to run tests in continuous integration and helps development managers understand test coverage and code risk across their organization. Diffblue raised $8M in funding and intends to use the proceeds to expand operations and broaden its business reach. The company is based in Oxford, UK. Diffblue is a University of Oxford spin-out that applies artificial intelligence to software development, built on ten years of academic research. Its core AI builds an exact mathematical model of a codebase from a few examples to achieve deep semantic understanding of programs. Diffblue is initially developing three products on that engine: an automated testing tool that spots bugs and writes tests, a security product that flags exploitable bugs and generates tests, and a refactoring product that rewrites outdated or poorly expressed code. Founder Daniel Kroening, a Professor of Computer Science at Oxford, says the longer-term vision is for the system to be able to write entire programs from examples. Financially, the company recently raised $22 million in a Series A led by Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments, one year after leaving academia. Diffblue’s stated thesis is that AI augmentation or replacement of software developers is necessary to meet growing demand for software.

Participated · Series A · Feb 2022

Orthox is a clinical-stage company developing FibroFix™, a fibroin-based tissue scaffold derived from silk fibres that aims to emulate cartilage functional properties while facilitating rapid tissue regeneration. FibroFix implants are designed to be bone-sparing, enable strong tissue integration, and be implanted via minimally invasive surgical techniques to support faster patient rehabilitation. The company is preparing pivotal clinical trials for knee cartilage repair, with initial recruitment of a six-patient cohort (six months follow-up) before expanding to a 75-patient trial with two years of follow-up. Planned and proposed clinical sites include Southmead Hospital Bristol and sites in Budapest, Hungary; Orthox has submitted a regulatory dossier to the Hungarian authority OGYÉI. The business is clinical-stage and has raised capital and grants to support development; it employs 18 people at its site in Oxfordshire.

Participated · Series A · Nov 2020

Mind Foundry, founded in 2016 as a spin-out from the University of Oxford’s Machine Learning Research Group, develops an AI platform aimed at helping insurers predict accidents and enable human prevention. The platform is designed to address the full insurance value chain rather than a single point solution, which the company and its strategic partner describe as a differentiator. Mind Foundry completed a proof-of-concept with Insure The Box, the UK subsidiary of ANDI, and that project’s success prompted plans to integrate the platform across the insurer’s businesses. The startup says the strategic partnership with Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance (ANDI) will accelerate ANDI’s digital transformation and help Mind Foundry gain a bigger foothold in insurance. The company’s co-founders are Professors Stephen Roberts and Michael Osborne. The article reports the company has now raised a total of $24.4 million to date.

Led · Equity · Jul 2019

Zegami offers a visual data exploration platform that lets organisations search, filter, tag, sort and visually analyse large collections of images and multimodal data. Developed at Oxford University and spun out in 2016, the platform aims to democratise data analysis by making complex datasets immediately comprehensible through interactive visualisation. Zegami reports 35 clients and several case studies across healthcare, art valuation, social media analytics and HR people analytics. The company says organisations using the platform save on average two hours per worker per day through effective visual search and analysis. Zegami plans to use new funding to develop its next-generation data visualisation platform and raise its profile through marketing and commercial partnerships with LiveTiles and Microsoft. Together with previous equity rounds and funding, Zegami is investing £4.0M into its technology and commercialisation efforts. Zegami provides data discovery and analytics tools to manage and sort collections of images and data. Its platform can display millions of images, documents, movies, 3D objects, or dashboards in a single field of view that users can search, sort, filter, or group in real time. The technology is designed to enable rapid exploration and analysis of large visual and multimedia datasets. Zegami is an Oxford University spin-out. Its current financial activity includes participation in a Series A equity investment involving external investors. Zegami enables users to view large collections of images and associated metadata in a single field of view and to perform intuitive data analysis. The company was spun out of the University of Oxford Computational Biology Research Group in February 2016. Its platform can display tens of thousands of images, documents, video, 3D objects and dashboards within one view. Users can search, sort, filter and group content in real time. Zegami’s software can be integrated into existing database management and business intelligence reporting systems or sit above them as a separate component layer. The company has received a final investment from the University of Oxford Isis Fund II.

Participated · Equity · Jan 2019

Sphere Fluidics develops and commercialises single-cell analysis systems underpinned by its proprietary picodroplet technology, centered on the Cyto-Mine® Single Cell Analysis System. Cyto-Mine is an automated, cost-effective platform that integrates single-cell screening, sorting, dispensing, imaging, and clone verification and can process millions of samples per day. The platform is used across antibody discovery, cell line development, and single-cell diagnostics and has been purchased by global pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, CDMOs, and leading research institutions. The company plans to use new funding to expand international sales activities and improve customer support. It will also expand product R&D programs and pursue novel applications in areas such as cell therapy, synthetic biology, and genome editing, alongside ongoing platform enhancements. As part of the announced financing, new investors will join the company board to support growth and commercialization efforts. Sphere Fluidics commercializes single-cell analysis systems underpinned by its patented picodroplet technology. Its Cyto-Mine® Single Cell Analysis System integrates single cell screening, sorting, dispensing, imaging and clone verification to streamline biologics discovery and cell line development. The platform can process up to 40 million cells per day and isolates cells producing specific antibodies or biologics. The company closed an additional $2.9 million tranche, securing a total of $4.8 million (£3.7 million) in investment, to be used as working capital for Cyto-Mine® and for expansion. Proceeds will support expansion of the UK facility, the opening of a US sales office and demo lab in California, and the doubling of personnel. Sphere Fluidics is recruiting and evaluating prospective new facilities to support the growth of its commercial and scientific activities. Sphere Fluidics develops and commercializes the Cyto‑Mine automated single‑cell analysis platform, which integrates screening, sorting, dispensing, imaging and clone verification. Cyto‑Mine can process up to 40 million cells per day and is used to streamline antibody discovery and cell line development workflows. The company is based in Cambridge, England, and sells its systems to researchers in biotherapeutic discovery and cell line development. Sphere Fluidics closed a $2 million (circa £1.5 million) investment round to accelerate growth in operations and support sales of Cyto‑Mine. The funds will be used to expand operations and sales capabilities across the UK and USA and to open a new US West Coast sales office. Management said it will invest in automating and streamlining manufacturing across its product range and expects to raise additional funds to expand capabilities further. Sphere Fluidics develops Cyto-Mine, an integrated device that uses picodroplet technology and microfluidics to process around 1 million heterogeneous mammalian cells in less than half a day. Each cell is encapsulated in a picodroplet containing growth media that acts as a bioreactor, enabling compartmentalization, growth, trapping of secreted molecules such as antibodies, and selective screening to find rare lead candidates. The company is led by Dr. Frank F. Craig (CEO), Dr. Marian Rehak (R&D Director) and Dr. Rob Marchmont (Commercial Director). Sphere Fluidics secured $7M in the first close of its latest funding round, which remains open. The company intends to use the proceeds to accelerate development of the manufactured version of Cyto-Mine and to enable a commercial launch later in the year reported. The business is based in Cambridge, UK. Sphere Fluidics develops proprietary products and collaborative R&D services for single-cell analysis and characterisation. The company was founded on IP generated by the University of Cambridge and has in‑licensed 10 patent families from the University and other institutions. Its core technology is protected by 51 patents. Development to date has been funded with £2.3m of equity and over £7m of grants. The articles position the company as an established life sciences business with a protected technology base and ongoing external investment activity. No operating metrics (revenue/users) are provided in the articles.