Living Optics establishes HQ at Milton Park

Camera tech firm Living Optics has opened a new 8,000 sq ft headquarters at Milton Park in Oxfordshire.

The University of Oxford spin-out, which employs 30 people, is working on hyperspectral cameras which can capture information undetectable to the human eye by detecting beyond the red, green and blue of standard cameras. The new technology could be used to detect tumours, assess food freshness, sort plastics for recycling and possibly determine the health and biodiversity of soil.

The company, spun out from the university’s physics department in 2020, secured £20 million of Series A funding last year, which will help development of the complex engineering and software applications required for the camera technology.

Connor O’Brien, Finance Director at Living Optics, said: “Our successful Series A funding underpinned a real excitement about our mission to democratise hyperspectral cameras for the mass market, but it also revealed a critical need for us to find more space and facilities to accommodate that rapid growth.

“We’re well on our way to introducing hyperspectral systems and the huge range of potential applications to the market, which have long been confined to the lab, and we’re really excited to continue that journey at Milton Park.”

Legal technology company Legislate has raised $3.6 million in funding as it prepares for international expansion this year.

The Oxford University-linked start-up is building a SaaS (software as a service) platform to enable small businesses and landlords to easily create, sign, and manage contracts.

Legislate’s platform is built on a patented knowledge graph technology which streamlines the contracting process and aggregates contract statistics to quickly unlock valuable insights.

Charles Brecque, Legislate’s founder, said: “For scaling companies, keeping track of terms across hundreds or thousands of contracts is a challenge that creeps up on you.

“Searching for basic information like contract start and end dates, or nuances in confidentiality terms across entire databases of contracts is painfully manual, or impossible. Before working with us, we know that some of our customers would spend weeks doing this.”

“We enable anyone in a business to search for information in contracts, even if they don’t have a legal background.

“That’s incredibly powerful for scaling companies where business teams need to review terms across hundreds of contracts quickly to understand exposure to risks,” he continued.

Last year the company was granted its second US patent for semantic document generation.

Customers primarily use Legislate for employment, consultancy, internal contracts, and terms of business agreements.

Oxfordshire is in many ways a tale of two counties. One side is at the heart of ground-breaking research and development and cutting-edge products that are working to address many global challenges – the other is a county that has 16 areas that fall within 20% of the most deprived in England, with one region within the top 10%.

What is more concerning is that these areas are only just a couple of miles away from the oldest university in the Englishspeaking world – the University of Oxford.

Not everyone has the career ambition to go to university and the Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership’s Skills team has been a long-term proponent of apprenticeships, promoting them to employers and schools/colleges as an alternative option to higher education. For many, apprenticeships can o er the first foot on the career ladder, growing skills and confidence while working and being supported by the employer and training provider.

Apprenticeships o er a fantastic way for employees to progress through various levels to a level six and seven apprenticeship, which is equivalent to a degree and masters, while o ering an employer a loyal employee within a locality that has a very challenging and tight labour market with traditionally low unemployment.

To enable more residents in Oxfordshire –including those from areas of deprivation, who have been impacted by the Covid-19 – we have created the Social Contract programme; designed to help people access good quality jobs.

Thanks to funding secured by OxLEP through the government’s Contain Outbreak Management Fund, via

Oxfordshire County Council, the Social Contract is a £1.7 million programme of activity. Launched in Spring 2022, the programme includes free support and advice to employers keen to pledge their unused apprenticeship levy by investing in skills infrastructure, providing employment opportunities to local people.

Employers can pledge up to 25% of their unused Levy, rather than it being returned to HM Treasury. To date, OxLEP Skills has unlocked over £500,000 of levy pledges, with a current target of £1.3m by December 2023.

University of Oxford – one of the largest employers in Oxfordshire – and some businesses located outside of the county who are just keen to put it to good use.

One organisation benefitting from this support is Hedena Health, a group of local health centres across Oxfordshire after receiving funding from JDE Banbury for their Nursing Associate Trainee, Bethany Lawrence.

This pledge has enabled Hedena Health to access apprenticeships as a valuable way to allow them to navigate the wider recruitment and retention problem facing Pledges have been made from the this important sector.

The Oxford-based gene and cell therapy company Oxford Biomedica

– who won the 2022 Oxfordshire Apprenticeship Awards’ large Apprenticeship employer award category, hosted by OxLEP Skills –specialises in the development of cutting-edge gene-based medicines to transform people’s lives across the world.

The company is leading the way in developing the talent of the future through its own apprenticeship scheme. The scheme provides university-accredited qualifications, real life industry experience and a salary; o ering an alternative career route that sets young people apart in the job market, opening the door to careers not always accessible to those from disadvantaged backgrounds.