Newsletter: VC Breakfast Club

/espresso

• /defence: Vizgard raised £1.5M to scale its FortifAI platform, securing UK Ministry of Defence and Home Office contracts.

• /biometrics: Keyless secured €1.9M for its Zero-Knowledge Biometrics™, cutting fraud by 73% and delivering 454% ROI.

• /microfunds: funds like Cocoa Ventures and Defiant drive £10-20M investments in fintech, AI, and sustainability.

/raising (?)

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/deals

🔑 London-based Keyless secured €1.9M in a selective funding round led by Rialto Ventures and Experian Ventures. The startup’s technology combats deepfake injection attacks and accelerates North American expansion, reducing fraud by 73% and delivering 454% ROI for clients.

💡 Oxford-born Snowfox Discovery announces first tranche of Series A funding to unlock potential of natural hydrogen. The investment will accelerate the development of it’s core tech and expand operations. Backed by Oxford Science Enterprises based on work by Oxford academics.

💸 London-based fintech Aslan raised €4.7M, led by Notion Capital. The platform enhances employee pay with instant cashback, budgeting tools, and flexible payouts.

👀 London-based Vizgard secured £1.5M in seed funding led by Sure Valley Ventures. The AI startup's FortifAI platform enhances defence and public safety by automating threat detection and camera systems. Notable contracts include the UK Ministry of Defence and Home Office.

🛡️ London-based Egregious secures €936k in pre-seed funding to combat AI misuse with advanced detection and mitigation technologies. Led by Fuel Ventures and Oxford Capital, the funding supports expansion into critical industries like national security, finance, and cybersecurity.

🤖 Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has invested in UK-based AI hardware startup Fractile. Fractile’s “compute-in-memory” technology aims to address the memory bottlenecks in AI inference workloads, promising 100x faster and 10x cheaper performance compared to Nvidia GPUs. With prior funding from Kindred Capital, Oxford Science Enterprises, Fractile is poised to disrupt the semiconductor space.

💸 London-based RegTech startup Adclear secured £510k in pre-seed funding from Haatch, Force Over Mass, and Founders Capital. Serving fintechs like Plum and Creditspring, Adclear automates marketing compliance processes, cutting review times from days to hours.

🤝 London-based Recfindr raised £300k in pre-seed funding, led by SFC Capital, to enhance its recruitment management platform. Targeting the fragmented UK recruitment market, the platform streamlines hiring for managers, reducing time-to-fill by 50%.

/funds

London-based Defiant secured a $30M first close for its fund targeting B2B SaaS and fintech startups at Seed and Series A stages. Backed by prominent LPs like Atomico and Cherry Ventures, the fund emphasizes data-driven VC practices. London's solo GPs and micro-funds like Cocoa Ventures and Defiant are reshaping early-stage funding with focused $10-20M vehicles.

/tech

• Oxford spinout Living Optics develops computational hyperspectral cameras to identify materials like minerals and vegetation. Backed by Oxford Sciences Enterprises, Octopus Ventures, and Braavos, the startup secured a UK MoD £2.3M DASA contract to enhance electro-optics and infrared sensors. It recently raised £20M to further its cutting-edge tech.

• London-based startups are leading Europe’s rollup trend. Health Hero and Cera Health dominate telehealth and home care by acquiring local businesses and scaling with advanced software. Dwelly streamlines property management using AI, while Patient21’s UK clinics combine acquisitions with digital platforms to enhance healthcare delivery across the region.

• Oxford-based Milvus Advanced is transforming low-cost metals into sustainable alternatives for precious metals, such as those used in solar panels. Backed by Lowercarbon Capital and Unruly Ventures, the startup is at the forefront of green innovation, advancing synthetic solutions to address critical mineral shortages for the green energy transition.

• Cambridge-based FemTech startup Demetria, led by CEO Lorna MacLean, clinched the 2025 Trinity Bradfield Prize for its AI-driven solution cutting endometriosis diagnosis time from nine years to nine minutes.

/flywheel

• 🚀 The Female Founder Forum, sponsored by Oxford Seed Fund, brings 80+ female founders, investors, and researchers together on Feb 7 at Saïd Business School. Limited slots—apply now!

• The UK’s largest pitch competition, One To Win, returns with £3M up for grabs! Backed by Haatch, Rigby Group, SCC, and Wealth Club, B2B startups can compete for regional prizes (~£335K each) and a £1M grand final at London Tech Week. Applications close March 2nd. 👉 onetowin.co.uk

• Oxford University Innovation’s CEO interviewed on Oxford+ - worth a listen.

📸 @techbrunch.

Every week I play with Midjourney to reimagine a TechCrunch story from the week.

This week OpenAI unveiled Operator, an AI agent that autonomously performs web tasks like booking travel and shopping. Thankfully, I don’t need to doom-scroll anymore - Operator can do it for me.

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