First on our list is 3Radical has developed a mobile app that helps brands increase customer engagement by gamifying commercial B2C actions. Users are rewarded with vouchers or ‘level ups’ by completing actions such as visiting a specific online store or making a purchase within a certain timeframe.
Founded in 2011, 3Radical has consistently raised a steady stream of equity fundraisings almost every year. More recently, the business has been featured in two high-growth lists — the South West Tech 50 (2020) and the BusinessCloud MarTech 50 (2022) and is currently valued at £4.63m.
QLM Technology, a spinout from the University of Bristol, has developed a quantum sensing system for the oil and gas industry, for the detection of methane leaks from wellheads and pipelines. Their technology uses eye-safe infrared semiconductor lasers in conjunction with a quantum Single Photon Avalanche Detector (SPAD) (Figure 1), which together acts like a “Geiger counter for light” to effectively count gas molecules in a gas plume out to distances of ~200 metres (~650ft).
The company has attended two accelerators; Seraphim Space Camp in 2018 and TechX Pioneer Accelerator in 2020.
Since being founded in 2017, it has raised a total of £15.5m through four investment rounds, as well as a further £1.95m through grant funding. Their most recent equity investment was in July 2022, contributed to by Bristol Private Equity Club, Britbots, British Business Bank Investments (BBI), Enterprise 100, Green Angel Syndicate, Newable Capital, Quantum Exponential, SLB, Wales Flexible Investment Fund, and other business angels. This was for a total of £12m to scale manufacturing processes and reduce costs.
BaseKit operates a website building and development service which partners with telecommunication and hosting companies to allow their customers to build websites without needing to write code. It aims to give people the confidence to build a business online. It attended the Seedcamp accelerator in 2008.
To date, this company has raised £17.1m through eight rounds of equity fundraising, with the largest of these being in April 2011 for £4m. Their most recent investment was in February 2022 for £967k. They have also been granted a further £277k, one through Seedcamp and another through Innovate UK.
Phasecraft provides quantum software, with applications in modelling and simulations, allowing scientists to predict the outcomes of chemical reactions. It is a spinout from two academic institutions: the University of Bristol in 2018 and University College London in 2020.
To date, it has raised £17.4m through equity investments, with the most recent of these being in August 2023. This was for a whopping £13m, giving them a post-money valuation of £51.2m. It has also received £1.83m through nine grants, including two contracts under the UK government’s Quantum Catalyst Fund, a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition funded by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), and Innovate UK.
Tumelo has developed a mobile investment app that aims to help users finance businesses and causes they’re passionate about. The “tech for good” company was created as a university activism campaign, advocating to change the way the University of Cambridge invested its £6b endowment pot. Tumelo’s mission is to enable retail investors and pension members to create and benefit from a more sustainable investment system.
Since its launch in 2017, Tumelo has attended an impressive number of accelerator programmes: Entrepreneur Accelerator, Launch Space, AG Elevate, and Tech Nation Fintech. It has also raised £17.5m in equity investment, across four funding rounds (with investors including singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel). The fintech startup’s most recent fundraising, in May 2022, was a £15.3m round with Fidelity, Legal & General, Nucleus Adventure Capital, and Treasury, alongside angel investors.
Clinical diagnostics company, Micrima, has developed breast scanning technology that allows scanning and detection of tumours in younger patients. It is another spinout from the University of Bristol, and appeared on the BusinessCloud MedTech 50 high-growth list in 2021.
The company has raised £20m through equity investments so far, with the most recent of these being in December 2023 for £5.13m. This gave it a post-money valuation of £26.9m. It has also been granted £2.62m, the majority of which was given in February 2008 through Innovate UK.
TravelLocal develops web-based software that helps to connect tourists with expert tour guides and locally-owned travel services in their holiday destination. In September 2023, it received a £7.29m investment from Active Partners, Gresham House Ventures, and Puma Investments to expand its international growth, develop its platform and invest in marketing. This is in addition to a further 10 investments since being founded in 2010.
It also acquired the German company trip.me in August 2021.
Rovco provides underwater surveying and inspection services for a range of industries, such as oil and gas, scientific research, and renewables. The technology company uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help its clients make informed engineering decisions and de-risk their projects.
Rovco’s innovative technology includes autonomous subsea robotics, as well as 3D vision with machine-learning inspection. It has attended both the Entrepreneurial Spark and Upscale accelerator programmes, whilst also appearing in the South West Tech 50 high-growth list in 2020.
Since being founded in 2015, Rovco has raised £32.5m in equity investment, across eight funding rounds. In April 2022, in one of two rounds completed that year, the company secured a £22.7m equity and loan investment. Equinor Ventures, Foresight VCT, Legal & General Capital, IQT, and the UK Government’s Future Fund all participated in the round. It will be used to invest in marine infrastructure, clean energy, AI, and to expand overseas.
Blu Wireless is an internet and networking tech business that has developed 60GHz band technology for smartphones and tablets that aims to speed up wireless internet access. It plans to licence the technology to manufacturers of semiconductors and chips. It has been featured on two high-growth lists to date, including Top 100–Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies in 2018 and South West Tech 50 in 2020.
It has raised a total of £42.2m through nine rounds of equity fundraising, including a £12.6m round in May 2019. This had the aim of creating more jobs within the business, internationally deploying its devices using its HYDRA mmWave technology, as well as scaling its sales, software, and customer applications support teams.
Xmos is a semiconductor company that designs and retails fabless semiconductors for a range of industries. It is a spinout from the University of Bristol, and featured on the South West Tech 50 list, as well as the 1000 Companies to Inspire Britain list—both in 2020.
It has raised £64.1m through eight rounds of equity fundraising, as well as a further £2.71m through grant funding. Their most recent fundraising round was contributed to by Future Fund and other undisclosed investors, for a total of £5.09m.
In the fifth spot on our list is Moneyhub, which develops software designed to allow businesses to aggregate and analyse customers’ financial data as well as facilitate rapid on-site payments via an API.
Since being founded in 2009, it has raised an impressive £71.9m through equity fundraising, the most recent of which was in December 2022 for £22.7m. They have also received £220k in grant funding through the West of England Growth Fund.
Ultraleap is a consumer electronics company that develops hardware that tracks the spatial movements of the user, allowing them to interact with digital content. It is another spinout from the University of Bristol (in 2013), as well as an attendee on the Future Fifty accelerator in 2021 and the Grow London Global accelerator in 2023. It has appeared on six high-growth lists so far, including the King’s Awards for Innovation in 2018 and the BusinessCloud 100 MediaTech Innovators list in 2021.
To date, the company has raised a huge £145m through eight rounds of equity fundraising. This includes a £60m investment in November 2021 aimed at developing its computing platform. It has also received £2.90m in grant funding, and has made one acquisition—of American company Leap Motion in May 2019.
Immersive Labs provides online training services for businesses, focusing on gamification to teach cyber security. It has attended four accelerators so far, namely Upscale, Future Fifty, CyLon, and the Mayor’s International Business Programme. It has also been named on three high-growth lists; South West Tech 50, HolonIQ EdTech, and Rising 100.
To date, they have raised £151m through six rounds of equity fundraising. The largest of these was in June 2021 for £42.7m, with investments from Citi Ventures, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Insight Partners, and Menlo Ventures. Immersive Labs also acquired American Company, Snap Labs, in November 2021.
OVO Group comprises a number of clean energy companies, including OVO Energy, which supplies gas and electricity. The company has seen a total of £259m raised through four funding rounds so far, the most recent being in February 2019 for £200m (verified at £109m). They have also received £250k in grant funding to help them with activities such as a zero carbon heating trial that will install emissions-reducing technology into 250 homes.
OVO Group has also made four acquisitions, namely Bonnet in November 2023, SSE in January 2020, CORGI HomePlan in May 2017 and VCharge in February 2017.
Graphcore operates in the semiconductor processing chip industry, developing and manufacturing chips made specifically to accelerate artificial intelligence and machine learning tasks. Graphcore’s chips use Intelligence Process Unit (IPU) technology, housing 1,472 separate IPU-Cores, capable of executing 8,832 separate parallel computing threads.
The AI startup has grown from strength to strength since 2016, with a total of nine funding rounds under its belt, which saw it reach unicorn status after just four years of trading. Graphcore has raised more than half a billion pounds in investment, and is partnered with large tech companies such as Microsoft and Dell Technologies. The company has offices in London, Cambridge, Oslo, Beijing, Seoul, and across the US.
