BGF led the Series A round with participation from existing backers including Octopus Ventures, Northern Gritstone, and Foresight.
"This funding comes at a pivotal moment as demand for high-speed optical communication systems is growing enormously. By developing world-class, high-performance infrared sensors, we are enabling industries to push the boundaries of connectivity, efficiency, and security by removing a technology bottleneck that has persisted for over 20 years."
The UK Government led the round with a £20m investment to support upcoming rocket launches and development programmes.
"Britain’s impressive toolkit of scientific talent, world class facilities, and unique geography means we stand ready to lead the charge and to work together with our international partners as a key part of the new space revolution in Europe."
— Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
The Series A financing was led by Par Equity to support international expansion and product development.
"Securing this investment allows us to scale our impact across healthcare and life sciences, with a focus on easing the burden of paediatric clinical trials. While legislation like RACE, SPCs, and the ODA has increased study numbers, specialist paediatric knowledge is still lacking in the industry. This has led to lower recruitment, adherence and trial completion rates compared to adult research. Little Journey is uniquely positioned to fill this expertise gap and tackle these challenges to advance global paediatric medicine. With the backing of Par Equity, Mercia Ventures, Octopus Ventures, and our wider investor network, we’re redefining how paediatric clinical trials are run and putting families at the heart of them."
The oversubscribed round was led by Venrex with participation from 8VC, Form Ventures, and several venture scout funds.
"With the adoption of AI in creative tools, the amount of creative work is now growing by 30% a year. For example, last year, more photographs were generated than have ever been taken by human photographers. So, we’ve been asking ourselves ‘what infrastructure is going to be needed to manage this volume of work?’. One problem that doesn’t scale well is issue checking – there’s no Grammarly for creative work and to date this tedious work is still done by eye. Beyond issue checking, we believe AI provides creatives with insights akin to accessing a panel of experts. We see the role of AI as enabling people’s creative processes, not replacing them"
The Cambridge semiconductor startup secured backing from Octopus Ventures, Cambridge Innovation Capital, BGF, and Foresight Group.
"Securing this Series A funding underscores the strong confidence our investors have in ForeFront RF’s vision and market potential. With continued support from Foresight Group and BGF, and new partnerships with Octopus Ventures and Cambridge Innovation Capital, we’re well-positioned to scale rapidly from engineering prototypes to mass production."
