Flurry of new companies join our two innovation centres
March 29, 2022
In the last three months, we’ve seen a flurry of new companies joining our two innovation centres in Oxford, with nine new science and tech start-ups and SMEs joining our thriving community.
With strong demand in the Oxford region for R&D labs, technical workspace and flexible office space, and the opening in March of the phase 2 development of R&D lab space conversion in our Wood Centre for Innovation in Headington’s Health and Life Sciences District, we have welcomed five new exciting companies:
Helio Display Materials, the first joint Oxford and Cambridge university spin-out, was founded by and Professor Henry Snaith FRS, also founder of the successful Oxford PV, and Professor Sir Richard Friend FRS FREng, both leaders in perovskite technology. The company uses innovations based on the outstanding properties of metal halide perovskites to create materials for a new generation of brighter, more colourful displays that use significantly less power. The company has recently completed a £3.5 million funding round led by Longwall Venture Partners and BGF.
University of Oxford spin out, OxDX Ltd, which is creating instant disease diagnostics using super-resolution microscopy and machine learning joins Helio at the Centre. They have also recently announced a £2.6 million pre-seed fundraise to develop their AI powered rapid diagnostic technology. The funds will help to improve the cost and access to infectious disease diagnostics worldwide.
The third company to take R&D lab and office space is University of Oxford spin-out Human Centric Drug Discovery which relies on human data and data from pluripotent stem cells to find a new generation of drugs to treat brain disorders. They are backed by major venture capital fund, Oxford Sciences Enterprises.
RedShiftBio (RedShift BioAnalytics) provides next-generation platform technology enabling measurements of previously undetectable structure changes in biomolecules through a powerful new analytical technique, Microfluidic Modulation Spectroscopy (MMS). RedShiftBio’s flagship instrument, the AQS3pro, provides in-depth structural information in a single automated analysis, enabling users to detect pivotal changes in molecular structure that affect the critical quality attributes governing the safety, efficacy, and stability of biomolecules and their raw materials.
OxONN is a company focused on the development of optical neural networks. With the modern-day AI revolution coming with ever-increasing computational demands, optical computing offers orders of magnitude improvements in performance and power efficiency. OxONN spun out of the world-leading experimental optics research group of Professor A.I. Lvovsky at the University of Oxford, with the vision of developing end-to-end all-optical neural networks where the information flow and calculations are minimally reliant on electronic processing. The company moves into the Centre in May.
Our Oxford Centre for Innovation in the city centre is fast becoming a quantum hub with QuantrolOx moving in alongside dynamic duo Quantum Dice and ColdQuanta.
A University of Oxford spin-out, QuantrolOx is building automated machine learning-based control software for quantum technologies to tune, stabilise and optimise qubits. Qubits are the fundamental building blocks of quantum computers but require different sets of control parameters to render each one useable. QuantrolOx’s software aims to solve this.
Other early-stage science and tech companies that have moved to the Oxford Centre for Innovation include Visionary Machines which is developing high fidelity 3D range-sensing using camera arrays to improve on current radar, lidar and AI cameras. They are aiming to revolutionise the spatial sensing market using camera arrays to enable machines to see and perceive the world better than humans.
Fintech start-up, Kaldi Financial Technology is a new finance platform to help young people get direct access to the stock market for savings towards housing deposits.
Ecosystem supporting companies that have now taken office space include IP lawyers Mathys & Squire.
A huge welcome to all our new businesses!
