Newsletter: VC Breakfast Club

/espresso

• /ai: TG0 secured £4.5M for AI-driven hardware.

• /healthtech: 52North raised £4.72M for oncology care, Newcells Biotech grab €1.4M for drug testing models, KHP Ventures launches £8M mental health fund.

• /deep: Oxford Flow raised $25M for valve tech, Illumion secured £2.1M for battery R&D, and ERV closed an $18M fund for deep tech in energy.

/raising (?)

Are you raising right now? Let me know and I can put you in the next newsletter.

/deals

💰 London-based fintech 9fin closed a $50M Series B round led by Highland Europe to fuel AI innovation, expand its U.S. presence, and grow its team. Co-founded by University of Bristol alumni Huss El-Sheikh and Steven Hunter, 9fin provides debt market analytics to nearly 200 firms. The round follows a $23M raise in 2022.

Google Ventures doubled down on London-based AI legal startup Lawhive, leading a $40M Series A just eight months after backing its seed round. Co-founded by Royal Holloway alum Jaime van Oers, Lawhive’s AI platform automates legal tasks and scales access to legal services. Other backers include TQ Ventures and Balderton Capital.

⚙️ Oxford-based valve tech manufacturer Oxford Flow raised $25M in a Series C round led by bp Ventures and EIP. Founded by Oxford professor Thomas Povey and helmed by CEO Neil Poxon, the company develops advanced flow control equipment.

⚕️ Cambridge-based medtech startup 52North secured £4.72M in funding led by KHP Ventures and Cedars-Sinai Intellectual Property Co. Founded in 2018, the company’s flagship product Neutrocheck®—a finger-prick test for chemotherapy patients—aims to reduce A&E wait times.

🤖 London-based TG0 snagged £4.5M in Series B funding led by NetmindAI to redefine AI-driven hardware. Co-founded by Imperial College alumni Ming Kong and Dr. Liucheng Guo, with Kong also an alumnus of the Royal College of Art, TG0 develops touch and gesture-sensing tech for automotive, VR, and healthcare.

🔋 Cambridge spinout Illumion secured £2.1M in seed funding, led by Foresight Group, to advance its optical imaging tech for battery R&D. Founded by Cambridge researchers, Illumion’s charge photometry offers faster, non-destructive insights into battery materials, aiming to cut development time for next-gen batteries. Backers include Cambridge Angels and Parkwalk Advisers.

/funds

KHP Ventures has launched an £8M-backed Innovations in Mental Health Fund to support early-stage mental health startups. Partnering with South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, the fund offers a 12-week immersion programme and up to £1M investments. Aiming for a £20M final close in 2025, it targets scalable digital health solutions.

Energy Revolution Ventures (ERV) closed an $18M fund to back early-stage deep tech startups in energy storage, hydrogen, and carbon capture. Co-founded by Cambridge alumnus Marcus Clover, ERV blends academic expertise with industry insight.

/flywheel

• The AI SuperConnector Showcase, set for January 15 in Liverpool, will feature top researchers from Imperial, Leeds, Liverpool, and York universities presenting AI ventures tackling challenges in healthcare, media, and law. Registration is free.

📸 @techbrunch.

Each week I’ll have a little caption fun with a recent tech story. This week, a Waymo robotaxi collided with a Serve Robotics delivery bot at a Los Angeles intersection, raising questions about liability. Waymo claims its vehicle identified the bot as an inanimate object and braked, but not before a 4 mph bump. Both companies are in talks to prevent future AV entanglements in the wild west of robot-on-robot traffic.

• Caption this in comments?