About Winfred
A structured record of UK startup funding, and an account of how it is put together.
Winfred collects UK startup funding announcements and turns them into one searchable record: the rounds, the companies raising them, the investors behind them and the people involved.
It is for founders working out which funds actually invest at their stage, investors keeping track of deals and co-investors, people weighing up a move to a startup, and journalists and researchers who want the numbers behind the headlines. Everything here comes from public announcements and the public register.
Rounds
5,377
announced since 2020
Startups
4,093
Investors
5,978
Raised
£157B
where the amount was disclosed
How it works
- 01
Collecting
Each night Winfred picks up new funding announcements from UK tech and investment news, along with any sent to us directly.
- 02
Reading
A language model reads each one and fills in a fixed form, leaving blank anything the article doesn't state.
- 03
Checking
Code then checks its answers. Quotes must match the source word for word, founders must be named as founders, and dates must add up.
- 04
Joining up
Coverage of the same round is merged into one record, and other currencies are converted to sterling at the rate on the day.
- 05
Companies House
Companies are matched to the register cautiously, and filed accounts and share allotments are added where they exist.
Corrections and removals go through the data requests page. If you have raised, send us the announcement.
Built by
Winfred is built and run by C8VA, the consultancy of Chris Garrett, a product engineer based in the North West. It helps companies work out how software can improve their business, and then builds it.
This site is a fair example of the work. It takes a steady stream of untidy public text and turns it into a dataset that can be searched and counted, with the checks written down in code rather than left to chance. A good many businesses have a version of that problem in their own documents, systems and suppliers.
"I've spent twenty years on every side of the tech industry: building the product, raising money for it, and selling it. It's made me good at working out what's worth building, and the best way to build it."
Chris Garrett
Founder & Technical Director, C8VA
What C8VA does
- Product engineering
- Working out what a business needs built, then designing and building it with your team. Web and mobile products, internal tools and data products, taken from the first conversation through to something running in production.
- Applied AI
- Working out where AI is useful in your business and where it is not, then building products around it that run on your own data. Winfred is one example. A royalty tool for Music XI that reads publishing statements in any format is another.
- Forward deployed engineering
- For AI and API companies: getting your product working inside a customer's business, where most of the real integration work turns out to be.
Previous work
Twenty years of it, for start-ups and international brands alike: products that record labels and airports run on, tools for firms in construction and logistics, and one-off pieces for live events and brand launches. Some highlights are below, and the rest are on c8va.com.
- U2 at the Sphere
- A web app synced to the Sphere's screen to the millisecond, used by over 10,000 people in its first hour.
- Dallas Fort Worth Airport
- The wayfinding app on 250 kiosks across the airport.
- AWAL and Platoon
- Data products still in use after their sale to Sony Music and Apple.
- Domino Records
- The platform the label runs its releases on.
- Toyota
- A RAV4 discount app priced on how remote you were standing. 10,000 downloads in its first month and a Cannes Lions nomination.
Start with a call.
If you've got something you're thinking of building, book a call and we can talk it through.
Also run by Chris
Macc XYZ is a monthly meetup in Macclesfield for developers, designers and anyone else working in or around tech. Evenings are a mix of presentations, interviews and panels, with time afterwards to talk. In its first nine months it has grown to 500 members, and meetups regularly draw more than 100 people.
Speakers this year have come from Pets at Home, PostHog and the BBC, along with people who have built projects for bands such as Kiss.
Dates, speakers and talk suggestions are on maccxyz.com.