Businesses in Wales backed for expansion
Here we feature the latest equity investments to support the growth of Welsh firms...
AN AI software company has secured a £780,000 pre-seed equity investment led by the Development Bank of Wales’ technology seed fund.
Route Konnect, based at the Tramshed, Cardiff, has also secured backing from proptech VC Pi Labs, earlystage investors SFC Capital and private angel investors with the backing of Plug and Play, who were early investors in Dropbox and PayPal.
Advised on by Cardiff-based GS Verde Group, the deal will support the firm’s growth ambitions by doubling the team with key technical and business operation hires in order to bring the platform to market.
Described as the Google Analytics of physical spaces, Route Konnect is the first video analytics platform to anonymously capture connected, multi-camera, vehicle and people movement insights across a defined space, town or city. The company is now trialling the introduction of smart corridors with Cardiff City Council to ease traffic congestion.
The company was set-up by Cardiff University alumni trio, chief executive Mohamed Binesmael, software engineer Matteo De Rosa, and chief technology officer and former software engineer for Amazon, Daniel Harborne.
Mr Binesmael said: “Our platform captures accurate, intelligent, realtime insights into the movement of people and vehicles – without infringing on individual privacy – to enable better, more efficient traffic management, place-making and urban planning across towns and cities globally.
“From reducing wait times at traffic lights and easing congestion for emergency services access, to improving customer experiences at stadiums and retail outlets, the application of accurate and anonymous movement insights has universal potential.”
He added: “We are thrilled to secure the backing of this incredible line-up of investors, enabling us to double the size of our team with new technical and operational hires, including machine learning and video analytics specialists.”
Matthew Wilde of the Development Bank of Wales tech ventures team said: “Route Konnect has built upon recently published techniques to innovate away the need for facial recognition for multi-camera movement analytics. This capability unlocks powerful insights about the movement across an entire location, without infringing on privacy.”
Hugo Silva, senior investment manager at Pr Labs, said: “The future of transport and mobility is intrinsically linked to how the built environment is evolving, with AI solutions becoming an essential tool in response to emissions regulations and congestion issues.
“Our investment in the company aligns with our conviction to back the most innovative start-ups that are accelerating the trend towards smart cities and urban sustainability. Having invited them to be a part of our 2022 Growth Programme, we are beyond excited to back Mohamed, Daniel and Matteo and our team is committed to helping them scale further and see Route Konnect’s solution deployed widely across global cities.”
Configur
Data software specialists Configur has appointed a non-executive advisor as it targets a £10m valuation within the next 12-18 months.
The Newport-based start-up, which was founded by Marco Oliver and Josh Evans in 2019, has appointed entrepreneur James Taylor to support its strategic growth plans – which has just closed its latest round the value of which has yet to be disclosed.
Mr Taylor, who founded child development organisation Superstars with seed capital of just £1,000 and scaled it to a company employing over 100 employees, has been working with Configur’s founders since the start of the year to scale-up its growth.
Having spent the last
18 months developing its platform to allow businesses to easily store, secure and share its data to empower collaboration and data-driven decisions, Configur’s founders now have rapid growth plans in place for the next three years. The business has already grown by 40% since the start of 2022 and is on track for over
200% growth by the end of the year.
Configur’s cofounder Marco Oliver, said: “Having met
James through BeTheSpark and hearing how he grew SuperStars, we knew his experience of scaling a business would be hugely beneficial to us as we embark on our growth plans. We’re delighted that he’s joined us in an advisory capacity. He’s already helped us get the foundations in place to grow the business and we’re excited to have him on board for the next stage of our jour- ney.”
Having exited the day-to-day running of Superstars, yet retained his shareholding, Taylor is now working with a portfolio of businesses in an advisory role. On working with Configur, he said: “When you establish a business, you don’t know, what you don’t know, but having scaled a business myself, I
now understand what you need to achieve growth. I’m looking forward to using my experience to help Josh and Marco put the right things in place to scale Configur. With triple digit growth on track for this year, it’s an exciting time to be involved.”
MeOmics Precision Medicine
Biotech venture MeOmics Precision Medicine has secured six-figure pre-seed funding to develop the world’s first precision psychiatry platform as it targets an valuation of up to £100m in five years time. The Cardiff University spinout said the platform will improve the diagnosis and treatment of severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bi-polar and other mental disorders.
Its funding round has been baked by former chief executive of Admiral David Stevens, Darran Evans and Edward Parkinson. It has also secured additional match funding from Innovate UK’s Biomedical Catalyst fund, together with in-kind participation from a leading UK mental healthcare provider. This funding will enable the MeOmics platform to enter its next stage of development from 1st May, with the expectation to build a large multidisciplinary team of experts in the Cardiff area, growing a company value of £10m in two years and £50m to £10om within five years. MeOmics’ scientific founders are professors Adrian Harwood and Jeremy Hall. Its team includes special advisors Dr Lucy Sykes (cell specialist and entrepreneur) and Professor James Walters (an acknowledged genomics expert). The business is led by chief executive Alasdair Pettigrew, a seasoned business leader with a track record of success in taking novel thinking to world-leading status.
Mr Pettigrew said: “It is difficult to overstate the importance of this funding – and the potential of the MeOmics platform. There hasn’t been a breakthrough in the treatment of severe mental illness for decades. It’s an infinitely complex field and is treated to date with historical drugs and a degree of trial and error.
The platform has the potential to change all that. We plan to be able to give drug companies, for the very first time, the data they need on the type of patients who will respond to a certain type of drug – enabling good science to show how bio-signals change with each treatment.”
Mr Stevens said: “My idea of a perfect investment is one which supports the growth of a company based in Wales, which is excellent in its field and whose success would be a positive for all, not just for its investors. Rarely does an investment score 3 out What’s not to like!”
Fellow investor Mr Evans adds “Meomics is operating in a very worthwhile and exciting space. The need for more efficient and targeted therapies in the mental health sector is clear. The team have already made significant steps and I look forward to seeing further progress towards their ambitious objectives in the next couple of years.”
Mr Parkinson said: “I am delighted to support this Cardiff University spin-out that combines machine learning with unique omics data to unlock life changing therapies.”
Trameto
Trameto, an innovator of smarter energy harvesting power management ICs (EH PMIC), has successfully closed the second round of seed funding. The undisclosed investment has come from the Development Bank of Wales and u-blox AG, a leading global provider of positioning and wireless communication technologies and services. The development bank is an existing equity investor and board observer, and u-blox AG will also join the board as an observer.
Chief executive and co-founder of Chepstow-based Trameto, Huw Davies, said: “This funding round enables us to embark on the next part of our journey to engage more widely with the market to complete and promote our OptiJoule energy harvesting PMIC solutions.”
Trameto previously received investment from the EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, believed to be the first Welsh company to benefit from the SME Instrument Phase 2 grant initiative
It is also the first European company to be accepted into the Californian-based Silicon Catalyst, the world’s only incubator programme focused exclusively on accelerating semiconductor startups. Trameto’s energy harvesting technology recently gained further industry recognition by winning the Elektra 2021 Power Product of the Year award.
Dr Richard Thompson, senior investment executive at the development bank, said: “Trameto’s OptiJoule EH PMICs offer the simplest, most effective, and economical way to create self-sustaining wireless IoT solutions. Huw and the team have made exceptional progress and we look forward to working with Trameto, Silicon Catalyst and now u-blox as our new corporate co-investor.”
Tony Milbourn, corporate strategy, u-blox, said: “Trameto has a clear vision to help manufacturers adopt an alternative approach to powering IoT devices. Unlike existing energy harvesting techniques that require significant design effort for different harvester types, OptiJoule autonomously adapts to any, many, and multiple harvester technologies.”