Led · Equity · Feb 2018

Re:infer provides a conversational data intelligence platform that applies state-of-the-art machine learning and NLP to help enterprises analyze and act on business conversations. The company was founded in 2015 as a spin-out of UCL’s AI research lab and is based in London. Re:infer has raised $7.6M to date and has received recognition including Best AI Startup at World Summit AI and being named a Cool Vendor by Gartner in 2021. The recent financing will be used to extend the capabilities of the Re:infer platform and to grow its AI, development, customer success, sales, and marketing teams. The company emphasizes enterprise deployments and extracting value from communications data across large organizations. re:infer provides an AI-driven platform that makes communications data understandable and actionable at scale by interpreting unstructured information. The company was spun out of the AI lab at University College London and is led by CEO Ed Challis. It currently serves customers in banking, e-commerce and insurance. re:infer is based in London, UK. The company raised $3.5M and intends to use the funds to continue developing the platform. It also plans to expand its sales and marketing efforts with the financing.

Led · Series A · Nov 2017

SAM Labs produces fully contained, standards-compliant STEAM and coding teaching kits that combine Bluetooth-connected hardware blocks, interactive software, and curriculum-aligned courses for grades K-8. Its flow-based and block-based programming resources and game-based apps are designed for non-technical elementary and middle school teachers and include teacher training and easy classroom management. The company reports its resources are used in more than 4,000 schools, with the U.S. cited as its largest market. CEO and founder Joachim Horn says the company measures itself by increasing student engagement, increasing teacher confidence, and decreasing teacher workload. SAM Labs plans to scale U.S. operations and sales, supplement its significant international presence, and bring new education products to the U.S. and U.K. The business originally launched via Kickstarter with roughly $160,000 raised and, including the latest round, has secured $19.8 million in total investment. SAM Labs offers a STEAM solution for teachers that combines lesson plans, apps and user-friendly electronics to teach coding and engineering across subjects such as biology, probability and music. The company pairs engaging software with hands-on hardware to serve children of varying skill sets and interests. SAM Labs focuses on learning outcomes and efficacy, aiming to improve student and teacher experiences through new technology, cross-curricula lesson plans, schemes of work and professional development. It also provides hands-on customer support and seeks to expand partnerships with government organizations and education companies. Reported partnerships include the City of Helsinki, the UAE Ministry of Education, Microsoft Education and Intel Education. The company was founded in 2014 and is based in London, UK. SAM Labs is a London-based education technology company that makes Bluetooth-connected, battery-powered building-block kits and a drag-and-drop app to teach children Internet of Things concepts. The kits include modules such as buttons, LEDs, servos, sliders, tilt, heat and light sensors, DC motors and buzzers, plus a virtual 'cloud' module that can use a computer camera or send messages to social media. The product is designed for play-based learning and targets children aged seven and older, with guided paths to more advanced hardware platforms. SAM Labs says more than 1,000 schools use its kits in learning or after-school programs, and the company acquired its first roughly 800 customers via a successful 2014 Kickstarter campaign. The company sells directly to parents via its website and through partners such as London’s Science Museum, which featured a special edition kit that increased exposure and sales. With the new funding, SAM Labs plans to further develop the product and expand marketing and sales to STEM-oriented schools internationally while continuing its mission to introduce IoT to kids.

Participated · Equity · Oct 2017

Featurespace develops machine learning-based fraud and financial crime prevention technology for banks and payment service providers. The company is building privacy-preserving AI solutions that allow models to be trained on sensitive data without organisations sharing raw data. It will apply federated deep learning and privacy-enhancing techniques such as k-anonymity and local differential privacy to detect financial crime while protecting data privacy. Featurespace was awarded PETs Challenge Prize funding from UK and US government-backed programmes to build a prototype for privacy-preserving fraud detection. The PETs scheme was launched by Innovate UK and the US National Science Foundation and the project is backed by SWIFT. Featurespace has until 24 January to build its AI prototype, which if successful will be showcased at the US Summit for Democracy. Featurespace is a provider of Adaptive Behavioral Analytics and the ARIC platform, a real-time machine learning system that risk-scores events to prevent fraud and financial crime. ARIC uses explainable anomaly detection to identify suspicious activity and catch new fraud attacks in real time. The platform scores events in more than 180 countries and is deployed by over 30 major global financial institutions, including four of the five largest banks in the UK. Publicly announced customers include HSBC, TSYS, Worldpay, RBS NatWest Group, Contis, Danske Bank, ClearBank, Permanent TSB and Betfair. The company emphasizes its machine learning models’ ability to automatically adapt to shifts in consumer, business and criminal behavior. Featurespace intends to use new funding to support continued growth and to further develop its fraud and anti-money laundering solutions. Featurespace develops the ARIC™ real-time AI machine-learning platform that uses adaptive behavioral analytics and anomaly detection to risk-score transactions and other events. The platform is deployed in more than 180 countries and the company says it can reduce genuine transaction declines by as much as 70%. Customers include 17 banks across continental Europe, the U.K., the U.S. and Latin America, and several payment processors and merchant acquirers have embedded ARIC in their solutions. Featurespace was created out of Cambridge University’s Engineering Department and is led by CEO Martina King with CTO Dave Excell as a co-founder. The company has offices in Cambridge, London and Atlanta and says it has strengthened its senior management and operational infrastructure. Management plans to use new funding to accelerate international expansion and continue developing and distributing its software capabilities. Featurespace develops ARIC™, a real-time machine-learning platform that monitors individual behaviours and detects anomalies to identify risk and catch new fraud attacks. Developed out of the University of Cambridge and led by CEO Martina King, the company serves financial services and gaming organizations. Its products and services are deployed in over 180 countries and customers include TSYS, Playtech, Betfair, Vocalink Zapp, CashFlows, Camelot and William Hill. The company cites the fraud detection and prevention market was worth $14.23bn in September 2017 and is growing at roughly 20% per annum. Featurespace says it will use the funds to support international expansion and continued development of its software capabilities. Worldpay has also formed a commercial partnership to licence Featurespace’s behavioural analytics for merchant risk management and fraud prevention use cases. Featurespace provides a machine-learning behaviour analytics platform (ARIC) that models normal individual behaviour and detects anomalies in real time. The technology uses Bayesian statistics and is based on research at the University of Cambridge by the late Professor Bill Fitzgerald and Featurespace CTO David Excell. Led by CEO Martina King, the company serves customers across financial services and gaming, including Vocalink/Zapp, CallCredit, KPMG, Betfair, William Hill and Camelot. Featurespace focuses on real-time decisioning, monitoring each customer one at a time to deliver tailored fraud detection. The company intends to use recent funding to expand its operations in the UK and the US and to grow its presence in financial services. Financial metrics such as revenue or user counts were not disclosed in the article.

Led · Equity · Sep 2017

Ieso delivers AI-powered, therapist-delivered digital cognitive behavioural therapy and is developing autonomous digital assessment and treatment products (digital therapeutics). Its core assets include the world’s largest outcomes-linked therapy dataset—over 460,000 therapy hours and more than 500 million data points—and a network of about 600 qualified therapists. Ieso currently serves more than 20 million adults via NHS partnerships and uses its data and AI tools to review sessions and drive improved recovery outcomes. The company plans to seek regulatory approval for autonomous digital tools in the US and UK, expand its commercial teams in the US, and pursue co-development and distribution partnerships for scalable market access. The funds raised will be used to advance AI-enabled, evidence-based digital therapeutics through regulatory approvals and to bring products to market in the US and UK. Ieso Digital Health provides digitally-enhanced mental health care services to health providers, private individuals, and businesses via a secure, written conversation platform. The company’s system uses proven, evidence-based approaches to treatment to ensure superior adherence to clinical models. Ieso invests in continuous professional development for its therapists to ensure quality control and promote retention. Led by CEO Dan Clark, the company focuses on delivering therapy through its digitally mediated platform. Ieso closed a $24M funding round to accelerate commercialization and product development activities. The company plans to use the funds to expand its commercialization and product development in the U.S. and the U.K.

Participated · Series B · Jul 2017

WaveOptics designs and manufactures diffractive waveguides, the key optical component used in near-eye transparent displays for AR wearables. The company offers 40° and 28° field-of-view waveguide products and a 40° light engine to accelerate prototyping and product development. Its patented technology transfers projector light into the user’s eye to deliver a large eye-box, binocular viewing and high field of view with crisp, stable imagery. WaveOptics has secured partnerships with global OEMs and ODMs and an exclusive manufacturing agreement with Goertek to enable mass production at consumer price points. The business raised an oversubscribed $39m Series C (an initial $26m tranche in December 2018 plus a $13m final stage) to scale operations in the UK, US and Asia and build high-volume manufacturing capability. WaveOptics aims to be the core optical component across industrial, enterprise and consumer AR markets as devices move from prototyping to commercial launch. WaveOptics is a world-leading designer and manufacturer of diffractive waveguides, the key optical component in wearable augmented reality devices. Its waveguides transfer light from a minute projector into the user’s eye to enable immersive AR experiences across industrial, enterprise, and consumer markets. The company says it is working with a wide range of leading global OEMs and ODMs as they ramp up product development. WaveOptics raised $26 million in the first stage of a Series C to scale operations and support international expansion. The capital will be used to scale up rapidly around the world, particularly in Asia and the US, and to manage and support an increasing number of customers across different sectors. Securing Goertek as a shareholder is described as a strategic development that will significantly expand the company’s reach. The company anticipates closing further funding in the coming months. WaveOptics is a UK company that builds waveguide-based optics for augmented reality, using hologram physics and photonic crystals. Its core product aims to deliver wider field of view and brighter full-colour images while addressing performance, form factor and scalability tradeoffs. The company positions its optics to be used across different AR hardware, targeting both consumer and enterprise markets. Founders Sumanta Talukdar and David Grey say first products are likely to hit the market next year. Financially, WaveOptics has completed a $16M Series B and had previously raised roughly $400,000; the company declined to disclose a valuation. Management says the new funding will complete product development, accelerate technology deployment, and support launches in new markets while focusing on building product and client relationships rather than exiting. WaveOptics develops patented optical display technology that produces full-colour, see-through augmented reality (AR) displays. The company is led by CEO and founder Sumanta Talukdar. It intends to use newly raised funds to strengthen its position in the AR market, with a focus on increasing market penetration in enterprise customers. WaveOptics also plans to accelerate its level of engagement in the consumer market. The company is based in Abingdon-on-Thames, UK. The fundraising reported was a multi-million pound round led to support these growth priorities.