Nearly £40m raised by London and Cambridge autotech companies
Two British autotech companies, Physicsx and Secondmind, have secured close to £40m in combined investment in a strong endorsement of the country’s growing technological prowess.
London AI startup PhysicsX, co-founded by top Formula One engineers, has closed a series A funding round of $32m (£25m), spearheaded by private equity firm General Catalyst.
This injection of capital aims to propel Physicsx’s expansion initiatives across various sectors, including automotive, aerospace, materials production, and energy.
The funding is earmarked for bolstering research, customer delivery and product enhancement.
Seasoned tech entrepreneur Jim Baum, known for his tenures at software companies Netezza, Endeca, and PTC, joins the company’s Board, alongside Jeremy Palmer, former chairman and chief executive of QuantumBlack, the AI consulting arm of McKinsey.
Cambridge-based Secondmind announced it has bagged $16m (£13m) in a fresh funding round led by its partner, Japanese car manufacturer Mazda, and Amadeus Capital Partners.
Secondmind focuses on using AI to solve mounting complexities in automotive engineering. The funding aims to accelerate sales and marketing and scale its cloud-based ‘optimisation engine’ model.
It comes as the UK, which is leading Europe for tech startups, is on a mission to cement its status as a global tech powerhouse.
To do this it will need to foster new ventures but, crucially, to hold onto and scale its homegrown tech companies.
This year has held a few disappointments as several companies, such as Instem and Arm, have dashed away to New York to grow in the land of plenty.