The UK’s deep tech sector is entering a new era. Already home to Europe’s most valuable startup ecosystem, the country continues to attract record investment in AI, quantum and advanced materials. Over the past year, British startups have pulled in more than $16 billion in venture funding – a figure that cements the nation’s position as a global tech leader, behind only the US and China.
Innovation is no longer confined to London. Fast-growing research and startup communities in Cambridge, Oxford and Edinburgh are accelerating breakthroughs from lab to market, powered by the UK’s world-class universities and public R&D infrastructure. From quantum computing to biotech and climate innovation, these clusters are turning scientific discovery into commercial impact.
Amid this momentum, a new initiative is looking to shape the next wave of science-driven entrepreneurship. The inaugural Frontier Innovation Fellowship, launched by London & Partners in collaboration with FCAT® (The Fidelity Center for Applied Technology®), is backing nine science-led startups redefining what’s possible across AI, quantum sensing, health tech and frontier materials.
Over three months, fellows will gain access to mentorship, workspace, and more than £500,000 worth of resources aimed at helping them scale from proof-of-concept to market-ready solutions.
Running for 12 months, the Fellowship is designed to strengthen the UK’s position in frontier innovation and connect science-led ventures with global investors, corporate partners and policymakers. Its launch signals a growing emphasis on translating academic excellence into real-world impact and ensuring the UK remains at the forefront of deep tech creation, not just adoption. More details here.
TFN decided to take a closer look at the founders driving the UK’s next wave of frontier innovation.
Andrew Lamb, Jonathan Winch and Michael Holynski: Delta.g
Spun out of the University of Birmingham in 2023, Delta.g turns over a decade of quantum research into practical sensing tools for construction, utilities, and environmental monitoring.
Professor Michael Holynski, an expert in quantum gravity sensing, developed cold-atom interferometry and earned the 2022 James Joule Medal. CTO Dr. Andrew Lamb, key inventor of Delta.g’s core IP, led the first commercial prototype under a £2.6 million Department for Transport contract.
As Dr. Lamb puts it, “Uncertainty about what’s underground costs billions and puts lives at risk every year… Quantum gravity gradiometry lets us see through the ground reliably and that changes how we plan, build, and protect the world around us.”
Head of Engineering Jonathan Winch has made the technology field-ready, with 20+ trials proving its industrial strength. Backed by Serendipity Capital, SCVC, and NSSIF, Delta.g is building the “Google Maps of the subsurface.”
Kyle Thomas and Matthew Harris: SAIF Autonomy
Kyle Thomas and Matthew Harris co-founded SAIF Autonomy in 2023 to create the trust layer for autonomy and physical AI, enabling intelligent systems to be safely integrated into society.
A Royal Air Force veteran and Empire Test Pilots’ School–trained Evaluator Pilot, he led R&D on autonomous air systems, advancing AI processing and edge-deployed technologies, and oversaw test campaigns across multiple platforms. After leaving the RAF, he flew commercially for a major UK airline, further honing his expertise in aviation safety and complex systems. Kyle combines frontline experience with tech leadership to drive safe, responsible adoption of autonomous systems.
“I come from the genesis of the issue we’re solving at SAIF. Having seen first-hand how often autonomy and physical AI malfunctioned in the test programmes I led for the U.K. Royal Air Force, it became clear the world needed to take AI safety seriously if we wanted to truly harness the power of physical AI to progress humanity,” Thomas told Tech Funding News. “Our goal is to become the global standard for autonomous safety — enabling governments, enterprises, and everyday people to embrace intelligent machines confidently and responsibly.”
Dr. Emanuela Maggioni: Hynt
Dr. Emanuela Maggioni, co-founder and CEO/CTO of Hynt Labs, is transforming sleep and wellness innovation through AI-powered digital scent technology. Together with co-founder Prof. Marianna Obrist, she’s building personalised scent-based tools that enhance rest and recovery.
With 18 years in sensory science, Maggioni has worked with Unilever, Benetton, and IFF, holds a PhD in smell perception and emotion, and is an Enterprise Fellow of the Academy of Engineering and Honorary Research Fellow at UCL.
“As I’ve learned,” she says, “tracking sleep doesn’t improve it. By combining olfaction with AI, we’re creating scents that actively improve how people sleep and feel.”
Dr. Laura Salisbury: KnitRegen
Dr. Laura Salisbury is the founder and CEO of KnitRegen, a MedTech startup revolutionising stroke recovery and muscle rehabilitation through wearable therapy. Its flagship device, the PowerBead, uses patented technology to retrain the brain–muscle connection, helping users regain strength, movement, and independence.
A UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and Mayor of London’s Entrepreneur Award winner (Health, 2021), Salisbury showcased the PowerBead at 10 Downing Street during the London Design Biennale 2023. Working with neuroscientists Professor Stuart Baker, Dr Rachel Stockley, and Professor Nick Ward, she has turned advanced neuroscience into a practical, accessible therapy tool.
“As I see it,” she told TFN, “our technology could be embedded in everyday smartwear — not just monitoring health, but actively improving it.”
Inspired by stroke survivors she met during her PhD, Salisbury founded KnitRegen to empower patients with tools that rebuild mobility and transform recovery outcomes.
Sam Brown: Planda.ai
Sam Brown, founder and CEO of Planda.ai, is using behavioural intelligence to bridge the gap between financial data and human behavior. With over a decade of experience across wealth management, banking, strategy, data, product and M&A, Sam founded Planda to help financial institutions better understand and engage their customers.
Leveraging generative AI and behavioural science, Planda provides actionable insights that enable banks, fintechs, and wealth managers to deliver personalised, informed and effective engagement at scale.
Sam’s mission is shaped by his observation that digitisation has often stripped the financial industry of the human intelligence once central to its success, he told TFN.
“After ten years working in money, I realised that the human intelligence that once defined financial services has been driven out of the global system in the name of digitisation and efficiency. This was never replaced, and as a result, billions of consumers have never been more misunderstood and further away from the institutions meant to serve them,” Brown said.
Planda aims to restore that understanding, empowering organisations to connect with billions of consumers more effectively and ethically, he said.
Xuehan Jiang: Primordial Catalyst Group
In a world where data defines value, Xuehan Jiang is reengineering how creativity is measured. As the founder and CEO of Primordial, a data-intelligence startup, she’s turning music royalties into a transparent, investable asset class – bridging the gap between capital and culture.
Before launching Primordial, Jiang worked at Grasshopper, helping build its asset-management arm, and served as chief of staff at COmastermind, shaping her belief in aligning capital with creativity.
“Innovation should serve both precision and purpose,” Jiang told TFN. “My background in quant finance taught me how to decode complexity; my work in social impact reminded me why it matters. Founding Primordial was my way of uniting those worlds — to design systems where capital doesn’t just measure value but amplifies it.”
Through Primordial, Jiang empowers artists and investors alike to redefine creative value.
Ahsan Murtaza Memon: Holotraps
As global defence challenges evolve, Ahsan Murtaza Memon is using light itself to fight back. The Cambridge-trained physicist and founder of Holotraps is developing holographic systems to detect and counter stealth and hypersonic threats across land, sea, air and space.
Born in Japan and educated at Cambridge, Memon’s multidisciplinary background spans photonics, optics, and computer vision — the foundation behind Holotraps’ defense-grade holographic technology.
“As we approach the end of the first quarter of the 21st century we find our planet technologically more advanced than ever before, but that same innovation possesses increased threat to civilian lives in the event of any localised system failures or outbreak of major intercontinental conflict,” Memom told TFN. “Holotraps is set out to trap, halt and/or deter such threats through our Holographic system as the application of our technology is not limited to only extreme scenarios but extends far beyond to civilian and homeland security sectors as well.”
Osas Omoigiade: Deep.Meta
As the race to decarbonise heavy industry accelerates, Dr. Osas Omoigiade is giving steelmaking an AI upgrade. The materials scientist and Imperial College London PhD leads Deep.Meta, a London-based startup using AI and materials science to decarbonize steel production and make the industry more efficient.
Under his leadership, Deep.Meta’s flagship platform — Deep.OptimiserPhyX — introduced real time physics-based AI to predict slab temperatures for steelmakers, enabling energy savings, productivity gains, and emissions reduction. The company has secured Innovate UK grants, entered the Manchester Prize finals, and partnered with major steel industry players. Omoigiade says his mission is clear: “Many steelmakers are not able to leverage their existing data in a way that accounts for the interdependence of their processes. With well-informed, actionable insights they could significantly reduce their energy consumption and production costs.”
Through Deep.Meta, Omoigiade is pushing the steel industry toward a more sustainable future, blending deep research, manufacturing know-how, and scalable AI solutions.
Tim Wilson & Natalie Long: Tempo Reading Global
When Tim Wilson watched his daughter skim-read on an iPad, he saw more than a learning habit—he saw a crisis. A former world-class musician turned AI innovator, he founded Tempo Reading, a platform using eye-tracking AI and neurocognitive entrainment to restore focus and accelerate comprehension.
“We are at an inflection point for humanity regarding cognition, and we have to act now,” Wilson said. “The average attention span has collapsed to 47 seconds.”
Tempo Reading applies flow-state learning techniques once reserved for elite performers. Co-founder Natalie Long, a former inner-city educator, witnessed how collapsing attention spans and pandemic disruption “became complete collapse.”
“We didn’t just lose two years of learning,” she said. “We lost a decade or more of educational progress.”
Backed by SFC Capital and Innovate UK, the team aims to combat what they call a global attention crisis.
Why it matters
Each founder represents the next generation of frontier technologists — scientists, engineers, and creatives turning UK research into global impact. The Frontier Innovation Fellowship provides these leaders with the mentorship, workspace, and exposure to scale faster, stronger, and more globally than ever before.
For more details on the Frontier Innovation Fellowship, visit grow.london.
