SOUTH WEST TECH COMPANIES JOIN ELITE FUTURE FIFTY TO AID GROWTH

Two South West companies are among 13 nationally selected to join Tech Nation’s Future Fifty programme for late-stage tech companies

Tech Nation, the UK network for accelerating the growth of digital businesses, has selected two South West companies to join its latest support programme for late-stage tech companies

The 13 companies joining Future Fifty 11.0 operate in 19 countries, have raised more than $2 billion in venture capital investment (with average total funding being more than £150 million), and employ more than 4,000 people.

Both companies are based in Bristol. Graphcore has developed an Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU) specifically designed for AI computing.

Its IPU lets innovators create the next breakthroughs in machine intelligence to enhance human potential. Graphcore believes its IPU technology will become the worldwide standard for machine intelligence computing. The company says its PIU has real potential for positive societal impact from drug discovery and disaster recovery to decarbonisation.

Graphcore has raised a total of $710 million, with the latest major reported investment in December 2020 when it raised $222 million, in a round led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pensions Plan Board.

Huboo is a fast-growing ecommerce fulfilment provider, enabling retailers to access a complete fulfilment operation. It takes care of the picking, packing and posting of products to customers all over the world via a global carrier network through its unique micro hub model which combines technology with people.

With fulfilment centres across the UK and mainland Europe, its software provides transaction management and quality control, order tracking and real-time billing, to integration with sales channels and marketplaces, enabling it to receive and process orders in real-time.

As at October 2021, Huboo had raised a total of nearly £80 million since April 2019, with the latest investment of £60 million, led by Emirati state-owned investment company Mubadala.

Companies joining the Future Fifty expect to grow rapidly over the next few months, with their average projected headcount increase for the next year sitting at more than 400 per cent, and planning to expand to 44 countries collectively within the year.

Tech Nation is a public/private organisation funded from both government and the private sector.

UK Atomic Energy Authority opens extension of nuclear Materials Research Facility at Culham

The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) has completed a £10 million extension of its world-leading Materials Research Facility (MRF) at Culham Science Centre in Oxfordshire.

Specialist materials that can withstand extreme conditions are a critical part of delivering fusion energy as a safe, sustainable, low carbon energy supply.

They are also essential in the development of STEP – Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production – the UK’s prototype fusion powerplant targeting operations by 2040.

The new investment has doubled the MRF size, providing an additional 12 shielded research rooms, used to hold high-end analytical instrumentation, as well as extensive new active chemical laboratory

Tasty win for region’s food innovators

The winners of an £11 million funding pot from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to support food sector innovation, have been revealed. And they include innovative companies from across the region.

S&A Produce Ltd of Hereford, one of the largest independent soft fruit growers in Europe, has secured more than £870,000 to drive research and development.

Through developing automated technology incorporating machine vision systems, the project will improve crop yield and quality of fruits. S&A Produce supplies strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and asparagus to major retailers.

The company has invested in laboratories and trial facilities at its farm in Herefordshire, where it works with the renowned James Hutton Institute, which applies science to drive the sustainable use of land and natural resources.

Swindon-based CCm Technologies has secured more than £980,000 to develop its innovative process that turns by-products from industrial and waste processing facilities into fertiliser.

The technology is also being used by Severn Trent Water to recycle waste into a “super fertiliser” at Minworth treatment works near Birmingham.

CCm’s technology uses captured carbon dioxide from industrial power generation to stabilise materials such as ammonia and phosphates from agricultural and industrial waste to create new fertiliser products with significantly lower carbon and resource footprints. space, for scientists and engineers to develop more neutron tolerant materials.

Chiltern Hills Farm Ltd based in Henley-on -Thames has secured around £50,000 to lead a project digitising the planning and mapping of vineyard infrastructure. It says this will maximise use of land and terrain features and minimise the capital costs of equipment and planting.

And finally Bristol-based LettUs Grow secured more than £347,000 to help design, prototype and manufacture an advanced aeroponic rolling bench system.

Lettus Grow designs and builds aeroponic technology and farm management software for indoor and vertical farms to help reduce the waste and carbon footprint of fresh produce by enabling more people to grow produce near the point of consumption.

The company has built an aeroponic research centre and scaled existing technology to deliver on growing sales pipeline and accelerate new product lines to market.

Supported by the UK government’s National Nuclear User Facility (NNUF) and Fusion Foundations programme, the MRF is also part of the Henry Royce Institute for Advanced Materials and bridges the gap between university and nuclear licenced site laboratories.

LatchAid named in Health Tech World Top 50 Innovators of 2022

Gloucestershire-based LatchAid, an app launched in July last year which helps new mothers learn to breastfeed, has been named in the top 50 innovators of 2022 in industry magazine Health Tech World.

Dr Chen Mao Davies, LatchAid’s founder, said: “Traditionally, the UK has one of the worst breastfeeding rates in the world, with the vast majority of women giving up before they want to.

“Breastfeeding is natural, it’s bonding and it gives the baby antibodies, but nobody tells you how difficult and painful it can be. In my own experience, I developed mastitis and thrush, the baby’s weight dropped and I often faced long lonely nights not knowing what to do.”

LatchAid says that early results show mothers using the app are more likely to continue breastfeeding for longer. An NHS trial lasting six months found that of the 271 respondents based in the UK, the number of mothers exclusively breastfeeding at six to eight weeks was 49 per cent, compared to a national average of 24 per cent.

Along with modelling and networking, the app features an AI-powered chatbot and live one-to-one support from human experts providing mothers with roundthe-clock expertise and companionship.

by Nicky Godding, Editor

The big news was the delayed launch of NASA's most powerful ever rocket, Artemis, (September’s Hurricane Ian scuppered take off, which is now scheduled to take place in November).

Then there was NASA’s audacious plan to intentionally collide a spacecraft with the asteroid Dimorphos to see if it could be deflected should an asteroid ever threaten to hit Earth. Project DART (Double

Asteroid Redirection Test), successfully altered the asteroid’s orbit in September.

With life on earth proving ever more challenging, scientists are now looking towards space to see how humankind can benefit from its secrets and opportunities.

The space rocket Artemis has been designed to send astronauts and their equipment back to the moon more than

50 years after Neil Armstrong, followed by Buzz Aldrin, stepped on to its surface. Together with commercial and international partners, NASA aims to establish a sustainable presence on the Moon to prepare for missions to Mars.

Closer to home, investment in space tech start-ups has soared.

UK start-ups at the Harwell Campusbased European Space Agency Business Incubation Centre (ESA BIC UK), have collectively raised more than £100 million in equity.

Since 2011, the centre has supported more than 100 UK start-ups developing new space and satellite technologies across a diverse range of sectors.

This £100 million milestone follows substantial new equity funding raised by two companies, Smart Green Shipping and Mirico, which both started life at the centre. They have developed technologies to help industry reduce their greenhouse gasses and carbon emissions.

In fact, around half the companies at the centre are tackling climate change, from developing sustainable rocket fuels to helping commuters choose greener transport options.

Helping reduce the shipping industry’s carbon footprint

The shipping industry is responsible for around 940 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year. The International Maritime Organisation has set a 2050 target for this to be cut by a hefty 50 per cent.

To help meet this target, Smart Green Shipping (SGS), supported at Harwell’s ESA BIC UK, has raised £1.8 million to develop its marine technology that will use wind power to generate fuel savings of at least 20 per cent, and associated greenhouse gas emissions.

The funding, from Scottish Enterprise, is part of a £5 million project to develop and test its wind-powered wingsail technology for merchant ships, including 40,000 ships already in operation. SGS plans to demonstrate this technology on a commercial ship within the next 12 months.

The start-up uses satellite data to develop the software for its digital tool, “TradeWind”.

This enables vessels to predict available wind power for each journey, and to optimise its route to minimise fuel consumption but still arrive at a port at a designated time.

The founder and CEO of SGS is Diane Gilpin, who has worked for more than 30 years in technology, innovation, communications and systems design. Among her many achievements, she was on the launch team for the first cellular telephone system in the UK in the 1980s and worked for several Formula 1 racing teams.

She has managed offshore yacht racing teams and pioneered renewable energy, wind power and anaerobic digestion with the Northern Ireland-based B9 Energy Group out of which SGS Ltd developed.

Diane said: “Shipping has a long history of harnessing the power of wind, but digital technologies are allowing us to work towards making zero emission vessels a reality. Smart Green Shipping’s FastRig wing sail technology offers a financially and technically robust solution to help support shipping’s green transition.”

The second company based at ESA BIC UK celebrating a recent fund-raise is Mirico, based at the Harwel centre.

A spin-out from the Science and Technology Research Council (STFC), Mirico has raised £2 million to help industrial companies monitor their greenhouse gas emissions and reach their net zero targets.

Mirico uses advanced laser techniques originally developed at STFC’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) Space, to analyse gasses in planetary atmospheres. These monitor very low levels of greenhouse gases.

Mirico’s technology enables a business to detect exactly where traces of carbon dioxide are coming from, for example if they originate naturally from plant respiration, or through the burning of fossil fuels.

Mark Volanthen, Chair of Mirico said: “I am pleased to see the unique technology my team and I developed at RAL Space enabling effective greenhouse gas monitoring.

“Investments like this are essential to ensure this important technology can play a key role in enabling industries to reach their net zero ambitions.”

Space sector expands to support UK plc

A newly published Space Sector Outlook has revealed its growing contribution to UK prosperity.

The outlook, produced by ADS, the UK trade organisation for aerospace, defence, security and space industries, represents more than 1,100 UK businesses and includes input from UKspace and support from the UK Space Agency.

In 2021, the UK space sector’s contribution to the United Kingdom was:

• £16.5 billion in turnover

• £5.3 billion in exports

• £6.9 billion in value added

• 47,000 direct employees

• 2,300 apprentices

The Outlook also identifies new business opportunities which include: in-orbit servicing and manufacturing, earth observation and UK launch.