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November 2023
The following companies were named by Bristol and Bath tech stakeholders for making waves regionally and nationally.
Biotech startup developing technology to store and transport vaccines and other biological material without refrigeration.
HQ: Bristol | Founded: 2022 | Funding: £2.9m | Subsector: Biotech
Smart reusable menstrual cup with in-built sensors providing data-led insight on menstrual health.
HQ: Bristol | Founded: 2020 | Funding: £800k | Subsector: Femtech
Material innovation company replacing single-use plastics with seaweed-based sustainable alternatives.
HQ: Bristol | Founded: 2020 | Funding: £3.32m | Subsector: Green tech
University of Bristol spinout providing temperature regulating building coating to reduce emissions from air conditioning and heating.
HQ: Bristol | Founded: 2020 | Funding: £2.2m | Subsector: Food tech
Medical imaging company using photonics in a portable eye scanner to monitor eye disease.
HQ: Bristol | Founded: 2020 | Funding: £483k | Subsector: Medtech
Online event marketplace for companies to integrate into their travel booking platforms.
HQ: Bath | Founded: 2021 | Funding: £4.2m | Subsector: Event tech
Robotics company producing 3D-printed, low-cost bionic prosthetic arms.
HQ: Bristol | Founded: 2014 | Funding: £6.3m | Subsector: Robotics
Startup developing a range of technology solutions for capturing and recycling microplastics, including a laundry filter for both domestic and industrial use.
HQ: Bristol | Founded: 2018 | Funding: £8.65m | Subsector: Green tech
Bionic medical devices using bioelectronics to detect and respond to heart failure.
HQ: Bristol | Founded: 2016 | Funding: £5.25m | Subsector: Medtech
Allotment-as-a-service startup offering a subscription model for allotment vegetable patches.
HQ: Bath | Founded: 2022 | Funding: Unknown | Subsector: Agritech
Indoor farming technology using aeroponics to enable plants to grow faster while using less water and fertiliser
HQ: Bristol | Founded: 2015 | Funding: £3.64m | Subsector: Agritech
Research-based startup providing smart socks for dementia patients to detect and alert carers of distress and agitation.
HQ: Bristol | Founded: 2020 | Funding: £301k | Subsector: Health tech
Founded in 2017 in Bath and now headquartered in Bristol, Huboo aims to “put people at the heart” of ecommerce fulfilment, in contrast with how founders Martin Bysh and Paul Dodd saw the market.
It offers a “human approach” to fulfilling ecommerce orders, using micro-hubs (or mini warehouses) supported by Huboo’s technology.
Huboo has been dubbed “the antidote to Amazon” and has been vocal about putting its values at the heart of its growth strategy. It has raised around £97m across seed, series A and series B rounds from investors including Episode 1 Ventures, Hearst Ventures, Stride.VC, Ada Ventures and Maersk Growth.
In September 2023, Huboo announced 130% growth over 12 months, winning 1,100 new clients worth £20m of new business.
Cofounder and CEO Martin Bysh said: “Having launched in a tiny safe storage facility in Bath seven years ago, Huboo has become one of the world’s
fast-growing ecommerce fulfilment providers, employing 600+ people across the UK, Europe, Turkey and the USA.
“We're hugely proud of our South West roots and the success of the business to date is in no small part down to
the strength of the talent pool in Bristol and the surrounding area. It's a vibrant and dynamic city in
which to be headquartered, one that continues to attract new talent – particularly young people – across a
variety of sectors, from technology to creative services.”
Ultraleap was formed in 2019 when Bristol-based Ultrahaptics acquired US-based company Leap Motion and relaunched as Ultraleap.
Its sensor and haptic technology allows users to experience sensations in virtual reality – aiming to make digital worlds “feel more human”.
Founder and CTO Tom Carter first worked on the idea for his undergraduate thesis at the University of Bristol and continued developing the foundations for the company in his PhD thesis.
In 2021 Ultraleap raised a £60m Series D round from investors including Tencent, IP Group, Mayfair Equity Partners, CMB International and British Patient Capital, bringing its total funding up to £100m.
Tech leaders in Bristol say that Ultraleap is unusual in maintaining its Bristol headquarters after its global expansion and attracting international investment.
Founder Tom Carter said: “Bristol and the South West’s long heritage of innovation and technology has been invaluable for us as a growing business. Ultraleap was born out of research at the University of Bristol and our headquarters have remained here due to Bristol’s fantastic position as a fast growing and vibrant tech hub.
Bristol is also a very attractive city for young professionals, and access to talent is very important to us.”
Founders Will Goodwin, Georgia Stewart, and Ben King started working on investment voting technology while at Cambridge University, motivated by the desire for greater transparency over the university’s endowment fund.
The Bristol-based fintech-for-good launched in 2018 and provides retail and institutional investors and fund managers the ability to vote on proposals at companies they are shareholders in.
Its clients include investment firms like Fidelity International and Legal & General Investment Management. In 2022 it raised a £15.35m series A round from investors Treasury, Fidelity International, Strategic Ventures and Legal & General Investment Management.
“Having launched in a tiny safe storage facility in Bath seven years ago, Huboo has become one of the world’s fast-growing ecommerce fulfilment providers, employing 600+ people across the UK, Europe, Turkey and the USA.
“We're hugely proud of our South West roots and the success of the business to date is in no small part down to the strength of the talent pool in Bristol and the surrounding area. It's a vibrant and dynamic city in which to be headquartered, one that continues to attract new talent – particularly young people – across a variety of sectors, from technology to creative services.”
Bath-based StablePharma launched in 2012 following founder Dr Bruce Roser’s years of research into creating temperature-stabilising materials.
The company’s StablevaX technology platform creates vaccines that do not need to be refrigerated and can be used for new and existing pharmaceutical products.
StablePharma employs around 20 people with an office in Bath and its science team based out of an R&D centre in Madrid, Spain.
In 2020 it received a £310,000 grant from Innovate UK and has raised around £5m across two series A rounds since.
“Having launched in a tiny safe storage facility in Bath seven years ago, Huboo has become one of the world’s fast-growing ecommerce fulfilment providers, employing 600+ people across the UK, Europe, Turkey and the USA.
“We're hugely proud of our South West roots and the success of the business to date is in no small part down to the strength of the talent pool in Bristol and the surrounding area. It's a vibrant and dynamic city in which to be headquartered, one that continues to attract new talent – particularly young people – across a variety of sectors, from technology to creative services.”
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In 2022 UK asset manager Mercia opened a Bristol office with a team of four investors after supplying capital to the region for a decade.
In total, it manages £800m in venture funds and the Bristol team invests between £500,000 to £5m for a first cheque, focusing on seed to Series B.
Regional investments include Bristol-based water recycling company I-Phyc , Cheltenham-based operations management software provider Enate, Exeter-based data service provider Distil.ai and Cloud8, a Bristol-based HR technology business.
The Bristol team have an investor-in-residence partnership with incubator SETSquared Bristol. In 2022 investor Adam Watts told techSpark: “We were attracted here because we buy into the scale of the opportunity that exists in Bristol and the wider South West. The British Business Bank recently released its 2022 Small Business Equity Tracker, which noted that Bristol and Bath represent the fifth largest startup and tech cluster in the UK, behind only London, Cambridge, Oxford and Manchester by yearly investment value. Although there are other funders in the region, we think the South West remains underserved relative to the size of that market.”
The South West-focused investment firm was founded by Devon-based Richard Haycock and Richard Olver following their respective careers in global businesses like Oracle, BAE Systems and BP.
It began life as a group of six angel investors and launched its first £10m venture fund in 2021 with plans for a second £100m fund to launch in 2024.
The investment strategy particularly focuses on “impactful innovations” in sustainability, healthcare and data between the pre-seed to Series A stage. It has invested in a number of spinouts from the University of Exeter, and EnsiliTech which spun out of the University of Bath and is headquartered in Bristol. Qantx operates out of various hubs in the South West, including Engine Shed in Bristol.
Maven’s Bristol office opened in 2016 and invests in technology-led small companies across the South West and Wales. Recent investments include provider of healthcare sterilisation barrier products Westfield Medical, based near Bath, and apprenticeship software-as-service Bud Systems, based in Bristol.
In 2023 it was contracted to manage a new £38bn equity fund – Maven Equity Finance Fund – to support South West startups as part of the British Business Bank’s £200m South West Investment Fund (SWIF) which includes loans, and debt finance.
Luke Matthews, Bristol partner, told UKTN that the team aims to support local, growing companies in any sector with cheques from about £150,000 up to £5m.
He explained that as the manager for the equity side of the SWIF fund locally, the firm has a unique, dedicated pot of capital for the region and a team in place to support companies after investment. He highlighted the unique position the firm is in by having the scale and resources of a leading national investor but with a demonstrable local focus.
Deep tech specialist Science Creates Ventures (SCVC) is the investment arm of incubator and support service Science Creates, based in Bristol.
It operates as a lead investor in early-stage deep tech startups from pre-seed through to Series A, with a focus on advanced technologies like biotech and quantum technologies. Its first £13.7m seed fund backed 12 companies, and it announced the first close of a £80m fund in 2023.
Science Creates and its venture arm was founded by Dr Harry Destecroix and Jon Craton, both formerly deep tech founders. The investment firm formally partnered with the University of Bristol in 2023; already around half of its existing venture investments are University of Bristol spinouts.
They include medical engineering company Scarlet Therapeutics and cell therapy startup CytoSeek. Other portfolio companies include green tech Kelpi, robotics startup Open Bionics and quantum gravity sensor startup Delta g. SCVC received £15m from British Business Investment’s Regional Angels Programme in late 2022.
Bristol and Bath Regional Capital (BBRC) is a leader in impact investment with a focus on the South West of England and £20m of assets under management. Its £10m City Funds invests in edtech, green tech, transport, health tech, and social care to deliver both returns for investors and strong social, economic, and environmental outcomes for local communities. Typical cheque sizes are between £50,000 and £1m over seven-year terms. It has deployed £8m and is open for applications.
The firm has made 20 investments in local businesses. Its £400,000 investment in Albion Technologies enabled the battery energy storage system provider to set up a Bristol-based manufacturing facility that will create 90 new jobs over five years.
It invested in the digital experience marketplace Yuup to grow its presence in Bristol, with 26% of the startup’s hosts now from underrepresented communities in Bristol.
BBRC has also invested in health and wellbeing support service AutonoMe and Service Robotics, which provides remote technology to tackle the care crisis.
Deep tech specialist Science Creates Ventures (SCVC) is the investment arm of incubator and support service Science Creates, based in Bristol.
It operates as a lead investor in early-stage deep tech startups from pre-seed through to Series A, with a focus on advanced technologies like biotech and quantum technologies. Its first £13.7m seed fund backed 12 companies, and it announced the first close of a £80m fund in 2023.
Science Creates and its venture arm were founded by Dr Harry Destecroix and Jon Craton, both formerly deep tech founders. The investment firm formally partnered with the University of Bristol in 2023; already around half of its existing venture investments are University of Bristol spinouts.
They include medical engineering company Scarlet Therapeutics and cell therapy startup CytoSeek. Other portfolio companies include green tech Kelpi, robotics startup Open Bionics, and quantum gravity sensor startup Delta g. SCVC received £15m from British Business Investment’s Regional Angels Programme in late 2022.
Bristol and Bath Regional Capital (BBRC) is a leader in impact investment with a focus on the South West of England and £20m of assets under management. Its £10m City Funds invests in edtech, green tech, transport, health tech, and social care to deliver both returns for investors and strong social, economic, and environmental outcomes for local communities. Typical cheque sizes are between £50,000 and £1m over seven-year terms. It has deployed £8m and is open for applications.
The firm has made 20 investments in local businesses. Its £400,000 investment in Albion Technologies enabled the battery energy storage system provider to set up a Bristol-based manufacturing facility that will create 90 new jobs over five years.
It invested in the digital experience marketplace Yuup to grow its presence in Bristol, with 26% of the startup’s hosts now from underrepresented communities in Bristol.
BBRC has also invested in health and wellbeing support service AutonoMe and Service Robotics, which provides remote technology to tackle the care crisis.
