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IQ Capital

IQ Capital

Venture Capital

IQ Capital is a deep tech venture capital firm investing in early-stage businesses using hard-to-replicate technology.

Portfolio

27

companies

AUM

£300M

under management


Portfolio companies

Paragraf

Paragraf

Paragraf manufactures scalable graphene-based electronic devices.

O

OxDX

OxDX develops AI powered rapid diagnostic technology for infectious diseases.

C

Cauldron

Cauldron develops immersive science fiction projects for the Web3 gaming sector.

causaLens

causaLens

causaLens develops Causal AI technology that enables systems to reason alongside humans.

Thought Machine

Thought Machine

Thought Machine builds cloud native core banking technology for the global financial sector.

Closed Loop Medicine

Closed Loop Medicine

Closed Loop Medicine develops integrated drug and digital therapeutics to enable precision dosing.

W

Worldr

Worldr develops privacy-focused communication platforms and security wrappers for enterprise software.

V

Virti

Virti provides an interactive training platform that uses artificial intelligence to improve workforce performance.

P

Porotech

Porotech develops advanced gallium nitride semiconductor technology for micro-LED displays.

Foundries.io

Foundries.io

Foundries.io provides a cloud-native platform for secure Internet of Things and Edge devices.

CyberSmart

CyberSmart

CyberSmart provides automated cybersecurity and compliance technology for small businesses.

D

Divido

Divido provides a white-label platform for retail finance and point of sale payments.

Nyobolt

Nyobolt

Nyobolt develops ultra-high power battery technology delivering fast charging and high energy.

CG

Cambridge GaN Devices

Cambridge GaN Devices develops energy-efficient Gallium Nitride power electronics.

CybSafe

CybSafe

A behavioural security platform that helps organisations manage human cyber risk.

Pangaea Data

Pangaea Data

Pangaea Data develops unsupervised artificial intelligence software that extracts clinical insights from patient records.

O

Opteran

Opteran develops natural intelligence silicon brains for autonomous machines and robotics.

K

KisanHub

KisanHub provides an online platform that streamlines data collection and decision making for agricultural supply chains.

NQ

Nu Quantum

Nu Quantum develops quantum photonics hardware for communications, sensing, and computing.

AccelerComm

AccelerComm

AccelerComm provides physical layer intellectual property to improve speed and efficiency in wireless communications.

N

Neurovalens

Neurovalens develops non-invasive neurostimulation medical devices for neurological conditions.

T

TOffeeAM

TOffeeAM develops design software that optimises product creation for additive manufacturing.

Privitar

Privitar

Privitar provides a comprehensive data privacy platform that enables organisations to manage sensitive information securely.

M:QUBE

M:QUBE

A fintech mortgage lender using data and technology to deliver mortgages in minutes.

TurinTech

TurinTech

TurinTech provides an artificial intelligence platform that automates and optimises software development.

Speechmatics

Speechmatics

Speechmatics provides automatic speech recognition software for business applications.

AA

Audio Analytic

Audio Analytic develops AI sound recognition software to give machines a sense of hearing.


Team

Kerry Baldwin

Kerry Baldwin

Managing Partner

Kerry is a partner at IQ Capital and co-founder of IQC Deeptech VC. She also serves as a member of the Defence Industrial Joint Council at the UK Ministry of Defence and sits on the board of the British Business Bank.

LinkedIn
ES

Ed Stacey

Managing Partner

Ed is a general partner at IQ Capital Partners, where he has invested since 2006. His earlier career includes management consulting roles at Sagentia and The Generics Group.

LinkedIn
Max Bautin

Max Bautin

Managing Partner

Max co-founded IQ Capital, where he invests in European deeptech seed and series A start-ups. He also serves as a board member across multiple companies.

LinkedIn
RH

Rick Hao

principal


Recent investments

Series B
£45.0M

The Series B round was led by New Science Ventures to support international growth and manufacturing expansion.

"Our increasing desire for continually improving electronic device performance paired with the absolute necessity to reduce our power requirements, and hence carbon footprints, demands new technology solutions – next generation materials will be at the heart of this. At Paragraf we are proud to be leading the way, bringing the first 2D material, graphene, into the electronic product supply chain, through our first products, allowing its transformational, game changing properties and benefits to be harnessed."
— Simon Thomas, CEO
Pre-Seed
£2.6M

The pre-seed round was co-led by IQ Capital and Ahren Innovation Capital to support team expansion and technology validation.

"Our ability to take a sample from someone with an unknown infection and answer the open question 'what do they have?' within a minute is a gamechanger for infection diagnosis and treatment. We’ll start with respiratory viruses and expand from there. In parallel, we’ll be simplifying the workflow to move the test from the lab to point of care, which will represent a step change in the availability and cost of infectious disease diagnostics worldwide."
— Alex Batchelor, Chief Executive Officer
Pre-Seed
£1.0M

Seedcamp led the oversubscribed round alongside existing investors IQ Capital and Playfair Capital.

"Our studio has naturally wanted to transition over the years into being worldbuilding-led so it could not be better timing seeing a new audience emerge that is looking for immersive game-like experiences where they own parts of the universes they love. At Cauldron we have a history of working in markets where we know our art and emotive storytelling can have a dramatic impact and we are seeing the rising base of Web3 players yearning for more."
— Fox Rogers, Creative Director
Series A
£33.5M

The oversubscribed round was co-led by Dorilton Ventures and Molten Ventures to support headcount growth.

"Our vision is to create a world in which humans can trust machines with the greatest challenges in the economy, society, and healthcare. Our customers are seeing transformative results with our no-code platform and we now have the resources to bring our platform to everyone."
— Darko Matovski, CEO and co-founder
Series C
£150M

Nyca Partners led the Series C round, which values the business at over $1bn and includes backing from several major global banks.

"We are delighted to have earned the support of our new and existing investors as we continue to move the world’s leading banks into the cloud. We set out to eradicate legacy technology from the industry and ensure that all banks deployed on Vault can succeed and deliver on their ambitions. These new funds will accelerate the delivery of Vault into banks around the world who wish to implement their future vision of financial services."
— Paul Taylor, Chief Executive Officer and Founder
Seed
£2.2M

The seed round was led by IQ Capital and Playfair Capital to support the public launch of the secure messaging platform.

"I am beyond excited to announce today’s news of funding from such a high calibre of investors in the cyber space. There is much anticipation to open up Worldr fully this summer, following its beta trials earlier this year. We will offer a truly private-by-design team communication tool without sacrificing usability. At the same time, we’ve seen an unprecedented demand for our end-to-end encryption ‘wrapper’ for Microsoft Teams, much of which has been on the back of security questions around remote working and the meteoric rise of Teams as a platform itself. Working with our investors, we are hitting the ground running and investing in our substantial roadmap of zero-trust solutions for the Enterprise."
— Max Buchan, CEO
Series A
£7.2M

The investment round was led by IQ Capital with backing from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and a UK learning technology fund.

"We feel privileged to have both deep tech experts and world-leading educators on our cap table in this round, to help us achieve our ambition of becoming the world’s leading developer and distributor of deep learning and digital training solutions."
— Alexander Young, CEO and founder
Seed
£3.0M

The funding round was led by Speedinvest to support the development of novel micro-LED production methods.

"It’s an entirely new engineered GaN material platform to build semiconductor devices on. It offers performance improvements that are suitable for mass production, scalable in wafer size – and crucial for the next generation of microdisplay devices such as AR glasses."
— Tongtong Zhu, CEO and co-founder
Series A
£5.8M

The Series A round was led by IQ Capital with participation from Crane Venture Partners and Backed VC.

"The industry needs a new cloud DevOps approach to IoT that’s built from the ground up to reinvent how software is developed and deployed. At Foundries.io, our team’s deep expertise and experience has helped us to reinvent how devices are secured and managed. We believe the latest software is always the most secure and most trusted, so we have created the FoundriesFactory platform to deliver to the embedded industry an easy to use cloud-native solution for secure open source-based software development and management,"
— George Grey, CEO
Series A
$7.3M

The round was backed by IQ Capital, Eos Venture Partners, and Winton Ventures to enhance product capabilities and expand internationally.

"The amount of support we have received thus far is humbling, and just goes to show the gap there is in the market for our offering. Cybersecurity solutions are often tailored to large enterprises with extensive teams and resources, whilst SMEs are left behind. With the help of our investors, we are challenging this mentality,"
— Jamie Akhtar, CEO and co-founder
Series B
£21.0M

The funding round was led by HSBC and ING to fuel international growth.

"The retail finance market is in a period of exponential growth, expected to hit $2.5 trillion next year. This provides banks with the opportunity to increase lending revenue, diversify their portfolio and neutralise the threat from new entrants."
— Christer Holloman, Founder and CEO
Series A
£7.5M

The Series A round was led by IQ Capital with backing from Cambridge Enterprise and Silicon Valley investors.

"Nyobolt batteries remove the limitations presented by conventional lithium-ion batteries. They are perfect for applications that require high power and ultra-fast charge. The recorded performance of our batteries represents a paradigm shift in battery technology and we are pleased to play our part in accelerating a greener, more efficient future, powered by world-class batteries."
— Sai Shivareddy, CEO
Series A
$9.5M

The financing round was co-led by IQ Capital, Parkwalk Advisors and BGF to scale the company's product range and double headcount.

"This latest round of investment is a great recognition of our success to date, with new and existing investors confirming the strength of our technology. Since 2016, CGD has grown significantly and we are thrilled to be in a position to deliver several products to market, following decades of industry-leading research in reliability of power devices. This investment will allow us to supplement our experienced team with additional experts and expand our markets globally, creating more sustainable electronics worldwide."
— Giorgia Longobardi, CEO and founder
Series A
£5.6M

IQ Capital led the Series A investment, which will fund go-to-market expansion and research capabilities.

"We believe in people. And we passionately believe in the impact data and behavioural science can have on human cyber risk management. Our platform is for organisations who ultimately want to do more than rely just on e-learning and phishing simulations. It’s a platform that can grow with them through to when they are ready to measure security behaviour change."
— Oz Alashe, CEO
Seed
£2.0M

The financing round was led by IQ Capital with participation from Hambro Perks and Ascension Ventures.

"This latest round of investment is a great recognition of our customers' success through our breakthrough AI and a product focused approach. With our existing investors reaffirming their support of the company and new investors with vast experience in the life sciences industry coming on board, we are on course to achieve our core mission of improving patient outcomes through a highly profitable and sustainable business model. In the past 12 months, the company has grown 15 times through the successful deployment of PIE in the biopharmaceutical industry, partnerships with healthcare data providers and significant contributions to peer review publications, which demonstrates that we are leading in this sector. This funding will accelerate this success by providing the resources to strengthen the team, explore new use cases, and expand into new markets."
— Vibhor Gupta, CEO
Seed
£2.1M

The seed round was led by IQ Capital with participation from Episode1, Join, and Seraphim Capital.

"2021 will be the year when Natural Intelligence will challenge deep learning in solving some of the most fundamental short-comings in autonomous applications and this funding round will set Opteran on a path to be at the forefront of this next wave. Already in a position to demonstrate the technology, we are confident that Natural Intelligence will become highly sought after as the way to deliver lightweight, low-cost and effective autonomy in a radically new way that will open up huge growth opportunities for robotics."
— David Rajan, CEO
Series A
£1.1M

The follow on round was led by Turquoise International with backing from the Future Fund and existing investors.

"We are delighted to welcome LCIF2 as an investor in KisanHub. This investment will enable us to grow the business in the UK and Europe and strengthen our links with local and national governments"
— Sachin Shende, CEO & Co-Founder
Seed
£2.1M

Amadeus Capital Partners led the Seed round, with backing from Ahren Innovation Capital, IQ Capital, Cambridge Enterprise, Martlet Capital, and Seraphim Capital, to fund new labs and recruitment.

"Our aim is to enable the potential of quantum mechanics using quantum photonics hardware. This funding will allow us to do just that – a world-class multidisciplinary team and our new laboratories will give Nu Quantum the ability to deliver meaningful demonstrations of our technology into the hands of customers and partners for the first time."
— Carmen Palacios-Berraquero, CEO
Series A
£5.8M

The University of Southampton spinout secured Series A backing from IQ Capital, Bloc Ventures, and the IP Group to scale its operations.

"From gaming and VR to automated robotic manufacturing lines and telemedicine, the use cases on the road to 5G appear almost limitless. But a critical roadblock remains – latency. For more than 15 years a research team led by Prof. Maunder, first at the University of Southampton and now at AccelerComm, has been working to solve the challenge to deliver on the 5G promise of a low latency, high throughput experience. We are delighted to have closed our Series A funding round, which will help us further develop and deploy our already market leading technology to help improve the efficiency of networks for many years to come."
— Tom Cronk, CEO
Series A
£5.1M

The financing will support clinical trials, product development and team expansion as the business pursues international regulatory approvals.

"Our work in the US and the success of the trials we have run to date have demonstrated the potential of our technology and encouraged us to pursue other applications. With this financing and the backing of our investors we can accelerate our mission of delivering effective and non-invasive solutions for some of the most common and debilitating medical conditions."
— Jason McKeown, CEO and co-founder
Seed
£1.0M

The Imperial College spin-out has secured seed backing led by IQ Capital to scale its team and customer base.

"We are delighted to receive this funding from our investor partners – it’s a fantastic indication of their faith in the commercial applications of our technology. This funding will give TOffeeAM the opportunity to continue our success at speeding up 3D printing across all industries by up to 20 times faster and to expand our team with expert engineers and other team members, and continue to scale the solution to serve our rapidly expanding customer base. We are at the beginning of an exciting journey, and this funding will help drive our growth and the wider use of this transformative technology across a variety of industries."
— Francesco Montomoli, CEO
Series A
£5.5M

IQ Capital led the Series A financing to support the cybersecurity provider's continued growth.

"Cyber security has become increasingly important, more so with the global shift to remote working, especially for the SMB market that CyberSmart supports. CyberSmart has already achieved great success by identifying SMBs as a market segment that was underserved by the cyber security industry. The company has a strong product-market fit, is hitting targets well ahead of schedule, and has secured strategic partnerships to further market penetration within the UK and internationally. The team has been incredible to work with over the last year and demonstrated thought leadership and deep understanding of the needs of SMBs, enabling CyberSmart to provide automated, and simple to implement protection for firms with 1-20+ employees"
— Kerry Baldwin, Managing Partner
Series C
£64.9M

The data privacy platform aims to accelerate international expansion and increase headcount following backing from Warburg Pincus.

"Large enterprises in regulated industries like financial services and healthcare have been early adopters of data privacy solutions, but all companies should look for ways to use data more safely and more effectively. Managing sensitive data at enterprise scale and complexity is a real challenge for even the most sophisticated data organizations. By automating the enforcement of data protection strategies, Privitar’s platform makes this achievable in any data-driven organization. We are excited to partner with Warburg Pincus as we continue to pioneer the category."
— Jason du Preez, CEO
Series A
£5.0M

The oversubscribed funding round was led by AV8 Ventures to support the company's market launch.

"The UK mortgage market is one of the very few sectors in which consumers are yet to seriously benefit from advances in technology. We have built a technology platform that will lead to better outcomes across the eco-system, in particular for borrowers and mortgage intermediaries. M:QUBE has the power to transform this largely un-innovated market for the benefit of all key stakeholders and improve returns for banks, building societies and institutional investors in the process."
— Stuart Cheetham, Co-founder and CEO
Seed
£1.0M

The University College London spin out raised the capital from IQ Capital to scale its artificial intelligence software optimisation suite.

"We are at the precipice of automated optimisation and TurinTech.ai is well-positioned for clients who wish to increase profitability and reduce costs. Our research has prompted interest in our commercial product from big tech companies, a multinational FMCG, fintechs, other startups and hedge funds to name a few."
— Leslie Kanthan, CEO and cofounder
Series A
£6.4M

The investment round was led by AlbionVC with backing from IQ Capital.

"We’ve invested heavily into our product and machine learning capabilities to provide our customers with what we believe is the best speech recognition technology on the market. We recognise that businesses are increasingly aware of the importance of unlocking their voice data and utilising it for core business functions such as compliance, analytics, training and improving customer experience. This latest investment opens up not only global expansion but the opportunity for new product development and traction in new markets."
— John Milliken, Chief Executive Officer
Series A
£12.8M

Parkwalk led the Series A financing to support product development and commercialisation.

"This funding marks the start of the next phase in Paragraf’s growth. I am extremely proud of the young team at Paragraf who have collectively delivered the early strategy milestones with great skill. This next phase will allow Paragraf to make these truly game-changing technologies a reality. Paragraf is continually seeking like-minded collaborative development, production and commercial partners to accelerate the delivery of the many exciting electronics technology opportunities graphene has to offer."
— Simon Thomas, CEO
Series B
£9.4M

National Grid Partners joined existing investors Cambridge Innovation Capital and IQ Capital in backing the sound recognition specialist.

"Our Series A round in 2017 raised $5.5m. Since then we’ve doubled the size of the company, licensed our technology to leading players and seen their products make a significant impact on the smart home market,"
— Chris Mitchell, Founder and CEO
Seed
£2.1M

The financing round was backed by IQ Capital, Longwall Venture Partners, Martlet, and Cambridge Angels.

"Having been in stealth mode for several years, this latest fund raising marks a significant milestone for the business and its founders. As well as securing venture capital funding from experienced investors in deep tech and life sciences, we have been able to establish corporate partnerships with international Pharma companies and the NHS, we have also hired a senior management team that represents the very best in talent across healthcare and technology."
— Hakim Yadi, CEO and co-founder
Series A
£4.6M

The Belfast-based health technology firm secured Series A backing from investors including Wharton Asset Management and IQ Capital to advance its neurological research and medical trials.

"We are delighted to receive this latest wave of funding, it will enable us to continue to lead the way in developing non-invasive neuro-stimulation technology and will propel our work to a whole new level,"
— Jason McKeown, CEO and co-founder
Series A
£13.0M

The privacy engineering software company raised £13m from Partech Ventures, CME Ventures and Salesforce Ventures to scale its operations.

"Advanced analytics and machine learning applications are fuelled by data, which is often sensitive. Privitar’s software enables our customers to innovate rapidly while maintaining an uncompromising approach to data privacy. We believe the use of technological controls to protect privacy is essential to preserve customer trust in the data-driven economy."
— Jason du Preez, CEO