Investment in UK startups slowed over the summer, according to a new report by Dealroom and HSBC Innovation Banking. Despite this dip, UK startups still secured $2.9 billion in fresh capital during Q3 2024, with the majority of funding concentrated at the Series B and C stages. The report also highlights that the UK remains Europe’s top country for venture capital investment this year, raising $12.4 billion—double the amount secured by Germany and France.
Fintech remains the UK’s most heavily funded sector, with standout investments in companies like Monzo and Moneybox. Healthtech followed closely, with London-based femtech startup Flo raising $200 million, marking Europe’s first femtech unicorn. Other key segments drawing investor attention in 2024 include generative AI and autonomous mobility.
From Allfocal Optics to Scalpel AI and Diffblue, the UK has seen some notable funding rounds recently. Here, we present a roundup of the latest UK startup funding activity that may pique your interest.
Hometree
Founder/s: Simon Phelan
Founded year: 2015
Total funding: $86.4M
London-based Hometree is driving the shift to net-zero homes, aiming to make sustainable living accessible for millions. The company provides end-to-end support for sustainable homeownership, helping homeowners install, manage, and finance renewable energy solutions to achieve carbon neutrality at home.
Recently, Hometree secured a £50 million mezzanine facility from CPPIB Credit Investments Inc., a subsidiary of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments). Combined with a £250 million senior asset-backed debt facility from Barclays, this funding will support the installation of up to 35,000 residential solar panels, batteries, and heat pumps across the UK in the next two years.
Autone
Founder/s: Adil Bouhdadi, Harry Glucksmann-Cheslaw
Founded year: 2021
Total funding: $23.3M
London-based Autone is an AI-powered platform that helps retailers make smarter decisions about managing their inventory. Using over 100 million data points per customer, Autone shows how even small changes can boost profits. By combining data from inside and outside the business, the platform uses advanced analytics and machine learning to spot trends, predict demand, and plan inventory needs in advance.
In October, Autone raised $17 million in a Series A round led by General Catalyst, with participation from Speedinvest, YCombinator, Seedcamp, 2100VC, Motier, Financière Saint James, and business angels from LVMH, Sephora, and Moncler. The funding will support Autone’s product development and fuel its expansion and hiring across the US and Europe.
Cult Mia
Founder/s: Nina Briance
Founded year: 2019
Total funding: NA
UK-based luxury retail platform Cult Mia, founded by visionary entrepreneur Nina Briance, is reimagining luxury shopping for the modern consumer. With a curated selection of fashion, accessories, beauty, and lifestyle products, Cult Mia highlights exclusive, one-of-a-kind collections from independent and sustainable brands around the globe. Under Briance’s leadership, the platform has become a go-to destination for shoppers seeking unique pieces that celebrate individuality, support microenterprises, and champion values like sustainability, inclusivity, and innovation.
In a significant milestone, Cult Mia recently raised $3 million in capital, led by Fuel Ventures and joined by Morgan Stanley and David Wertheimer, an investor connected to the Chanel family. Following this, an extension round—backed by existing shareholders and H&M Group Ventures—brought Cult Mia’s total seed funding to $5 million. This fresh capital will drive the platform’s ambitious expansion, with a strong focus on establishing a presence in the Middle East and scaling its unique approach to sustainable luxury in new markets.
iGent AI
Founder/s: Sean Ward, Martin Szummer
Founded year: 2023
Total funding: $8.3M
iGent AI, a UK startup which has come out of stealth mode to transform the software development landscape, recently raised £6.3 million ($8 million) in seed funding. Led by HV Capital with participation from XTX Ventures, TwinPath, 10x Founders, and Dhyan, this investment highlighted iGent AI’s promise in revolutionising the industry.
At the heart of iGent AI’s innovation is Maestro, a powerful platform that brings advanced engineering intelligence to software development. Maestro empowers individual developers to tackle complex engineering tasks that would typically require entire teams, streamlining processes and driving efficiency.
With this new funding, iGent AI plans to accelerate Maestro’s development, broaden its applications to handle even more engineering challenges, and grow its engineering and research teams, positioning the company to continue leading advancements in intelligent software solutions.
Auquan
Founder/s: Chandini Jain, Shubham Jain
Founded year: 2017
Total funding: $9.4M
An AI innovator for financial services Auquan is headquartered in London. It is the first AI solution to leverage an AI agent architecture and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) to automate deep knowledge-intensive workflows in financial services. Designed to handle complex and recurring tasks, this company liberates finance teams from time-consuming, routine tasks, so they focus on high-value, strategic work.
A couple of weeks back, Auquan raised $4.5 million additional funding, which took the total seed funding to $8 million. The investment was led by Peak XV with continued participation from Neotribe Ventures. The new funding will be primarily allocated to expanding Auquan’s engineering and sales teams.
GridBeyond
Founder/s: Michael Phelan, Richard O’Loughlin
Founded year: 2007
Total funding: $76.3M
GridBeyond is an Irish intelligent energy and smart grid platform provider for distributed energy resource management. It uses AI to innovate and collaborate with customers and create optimal value from energy generation, demand, and storage to deliver a zero-carbon future. The platform helps businesses unlock the full potential of energy assets, ensuring the sustainability, resilience, and affordability of energy.
Last month, the company awarded $7.8 million to work on the Advanced Reliability and Resiliency Operations for Wind and Solar (ARROWS) R&D project that was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The ARROWS project will demonstrate the scalability, cost-effectiveness, and reliability of using GridBeyond’s AI-powered Renewable Controls Platform (RCP) technology to autonomously provide advanced grid services.
Mindtech Global
Founder/s: Steve Harris
Founded year: 2018
Total funding: $11.9M
UK-based Mindtech Global develops DataOps platforms for intelligently engineered synthetic data. It enables better AI models through data analysis, visualisation, and curation. The company solves a key challenge for AI developers, such as how to source sufficient images and datasets to train computer vision systems to identify humans or objects in different settings and recognise small but significant differences.
In a recent development, Mindtech Global secured £4.4 million in a funding round led by Edge and including Mercia Ventures, which was investing from its own funds and the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund. The latest funding round will enable the company to further develop its technology, accelerate its presence in key markets including Japan, the US and Europe and continue its partnerships with industry leaders.
Birl
Founder/s: Cam McGimpsey, Peter Lydon
Founded year: 2022
Total funding: $1.3M
Liverpool, UK-based fashion resale startup, Birl provides a platform that allows consumers to trade-in pre-owned clothing directly on brand websites. The company plans to expand its fashion resale platform to include a sports shirt trade-in solution, launching partnerships with multiple football and Premiership rugby clubs. This allows fans to trade in used football and rugby shirts for credit, making it easy to buy the latest shirt while supporting sustainable practices.
Earlier this month, Birl landed £500k in pre-seed funding. The company intends to use the funds to expand into the Nordics by the end of the year, and its development and recruitment efforts.
Anam.ai
Founder/s: Caoimhe Murphy, Ben Carr
Founded year: 2023
Total funding: $2.3M
London-headquartered Anam.ai builds real-time AI personas that feel as natural as interacting with a human. They are photorealistic, multilingual, respond in real-time, and are available 24/7. They are also emotive and can convey the subtitles of human emotion based on the context of the conversation. They can be used for applications such as customer support, education, or healthcare, integrating with client’s products.
Last month, Anam.io secured $2.3 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Concept Ventures with participation from Torch Capital and angel investors from Elevenlabs, Spotify, Sonantic, and Speechly.ai. The company intends to use the funds to build out the team of AI researchers and software engineers and continue iterating on the product.
Definition Health
Founder/s: Sandeep Chauhan, Rosie Scott
Founded year: 2018
Total funding: $8.1M
Headquartered in London, healthtech startup Definition Health delivers personalised, data-driven care to improve surgical efficiency, reduce complications, and optimise outcomes for patients, hospitals, and insurers. The platform integrates predictive analytics and machine learning into clinical workflows to optimise pre-op planning, reduce complications, and accelerate recovery.
In October, the company raised £5.75 million in pre-seed funding. The investment came from Dr. David Redfern, CEO of David Redfern Surgery, Orthopaedic Surgeon. The funding will further accelerate the enhancement of the platform designed to integrate into healthcare systems.
