Winners 

2020

The total amount raised to date by #21toWatch alumni has reached more than £710 million

In 2024, we highlighted that the Top 21 had collectively raised £110 million in a single year. In 2025, that number surged by 42%, with alumni raising over £183 million – bringing the total amount raised to date to more than £710 million (excluding CMR Surgical private equity, and undisclosed deals).

 Full #21toWatch List


Name Synopsis People/Company/Thing Longlist Shortlist Top21

Adaptive Machine Patterns

Company

AgeCurve

Company

Alceus Bio

Alceus Bio is pioneering the first class of multimodal CAR T therapies, targeting solid cancers in multiple ways to prevent cancer resistance and improve therapeutic outcomes

Company

AllFocal Optics

AllFocal Optics is poised to revolutionize AR/VR technology through groundbreaking nanophotonic solutions. Rooted in foundational research from Cambridge University, we deliver unparalleled visual experiences while prioritizing compatibility and scalability

Thing

Anna-Maria Kypraiou

Founder of Eyesea Green Ltd alumna Dr. Anna-Maria Kypraiou is at the forefront of developing technologies aimed at reducing carbon emissions while enhancing living standards.

People

Anthrotek

Company

Arkoprovo Paul

Cofounder of Oltera. He has been working on stem cell models of Neurodegenerative conditions to discover potential therapeutic strategies

People

Artemis-A

Thing

Austin Reed

IntercepTx is working to revolutionise cancer treatment by developing tools to enable cancer prevention therapies - intercepting tumours before they form. Austin is part of the Judge Accelerate programme and completed pre-Accelerate in December 2024

People

Avatrial

Thing

Beep

Thing

Bioscopic

Bioscopic is a groundbreaking biotech startup that is tapping into an unexpected source of medical innovation: beneficial bacteria found in infants. These tiny microbes play a crucial role in developing a healthy immune system and fighting diseases from the earliest stages of life

Company

BioTryp Therapeutics

Bacteria form protective communities called biofilms, where they thrive, and treatments fail. BioTryp Therapeutics is developing novel anti-biofilm therapies to revolutionise how we treat infections, starting with urinary tract infections

Company

Biozeroc

Company

Blecon

Company

Boone

Thing

CamGene Therapeutics

Company

Cellestial Health

Cellestial Health is a pharmacological discovery company protecting the neglected half of the brain composed of astrocytes - to stop the progression of Parkinson's disease from the time of diagnosis

Company

clock.bio

clock.bio aims to extend and improve quality of life by reversing the harmful effects of time in our cells, harnessing the regenerative capabilities of human pluripotent stem cells

Company

Creasallis

Company

Dom Portal

Company

Dorothea Böken

People

Dr Chris Macdonald

People

Dr Ethan Waisberg

Ethan Waisberg is an Academic Foundation Programme Doctor at Cambridge, member of NASA's Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Working Group and leads AngioGenius, a start-up developing an app for home eye disease detection

People

Eliot Medcalf

People

enstic

Thing

Ephyra

Company

Ever Resource

Thing

Evoralis

Evoralis pioneers enzyme technology to break down textiles and plastics into reusable building blocks, transforming polyester, nylon, and more, even tough blended fibres, accelerating a truly circular economy

Company

FoodSquared

Company

Fuse Diagnostics

Company

Gastrobody Therapeutics

Company

Georgina Leadley

PhD student at Cambridge researching non-invasive brain imaging using NIRS and DOT for applications in newborns with brain injuries and people with Alzheimer's. Background in Physics and Biomedical Engineering, with extensive laboratory and software developing experience

People

Goitseone Thamae

People

GraphEnergy Tech

Company

Healthium(TM) platform

Thing

Healthspan Biotics

Company

HEAVENS

HEAVENS, Ethicronics' flagship software solution, ensures 100% electronics products hardware integrity and authenticity down to nanometer scale, segment and product agnostic, supported by leading funding authorities and world leading partners

Thing

Homemove

Thing

iBoxit

iBoxit offers sustainable and carbon-negative packaging and logistical solutions, made entirely from natural and waste materials

Thing

Ignota Labs

Company

Illumion

Company

Immutrin

Company

Infiniti Recycling Ltd

Infiniti Recycling Ltd is building the world's first carbon-negative closed-loop battery recycling system, creating low-impact active materials for new batteries from waste streams

Company

Inge Hunter

People

innex.ai

Company

Jiayin Hong

We specialise in precision epigenetics to provide efficient cellular reprogramming solutions, offering customized cells for research, therapeutic, and regenerative medicine

People

JoltSynSor

Company

Jonathan Fisher

Founder of Peter, a device initially developed for his father to help him - and millions of others with Parkinson’s Disease - regain their mobility and walk confidently again

People

Journey Lens™

Journey Lens™ is more than just smart glasses—it’s like a fitness tracker for your focus. Just as wearables track your heart rate, Journey Lens uses biosensors to monitor your attention and help you stay in control

Thing

Klaxon AI

Company

KluraLabs

Company

KNEE3D

Company

Lambda agri

We produce a material that converts unused sunlight to light used for photosynthesis, spray coatable on greenhouses or for incorporation in polytunnel films, for a 20% increase in crop-yield

Thing

LinkGevity

Company

Lucy Jung

Founder of LYEONS Neurotech and Charco Neurotech, specialising in innovating life-enhancing solutions for people with long-term, medical, and neurological conditions. Experienced in neuromodulation, sensory modulation, user-centered design, and advancing brain health innovations globally

People

Luke Cullen

Luke aims to accelerate decarbonisation. Just Decarbonise uses his PhD research to drastically reduce the data required for accurate carbon emissions reporting. This enables low-cost and accurate decarbonisation strategies

People

Mindaugas Gicevičius

People

Nanomation

Nanomation's patented technology makes it possible for the semiconductor industry to manufacture with nanomaterials for the first time, paving the way for faster, more powerful, and more efficient chips

Company

NanoPrint Innovations

NanoPrint Innovations specialises in advanced thin-film deposition technology. We provide high-speed, vacuum-free deposition systems for industrial and research use, enhancing solar cell efficiency and enabling scalable, cost-effective solar and electronics production

Company

Neobe Therapeutics

Company

NoBACZ

Thing

OPAU

Thing

Opto Biosystems

Company

Outsee

OutSee is a deep TechBio company exploiting our innovative computational approach to genomics for drug target discovery and precision medicine, extracting value from genomics datasets beyond the state-of-the-art

Company

PartitionBio

Company

PES Technologies

Company

PfBIO

Company

PheroSyn

Company

Ping Lin Yeap

Ping Lin is a Gates Cambridge Scholar at the University of Cambridge, whose PhD research focuses on synthetic medical image generation for adaptive cancer radiotherapy. He has been awarded multiple grants to translate this technology into clinical use

People

PowerMatrix

Company

Prospectral

Prospectral has designed a new approach to spectral imaging and is building a technology to empower companies with dramatically lower-cost, more compact, and less complex cameras for gathering the data required to detect and analyse materials

Thing

Raifa Al Maamari

Raifa’s pioneering research in energy policy contributes to developing low-carbon hydrogen value chains in the GCC region—a sustainable focus that’s driving innovations in Oman, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar

People

Reclinker

The world's first zero-emissions cement has been invented in Cambridge. The new cement is made in a virtuous recycling loop that eliminates the emissions of cement production, saves raw materials, and reduces the emissions needed to make lime-flux

Thing

Robert Rouse

People

Saeed Fathi

People

Sara AlMahri

People

School Health Pulse

Thing

Sqwish

Company

Summatic

Thing

Supersense Technologies

The SenS2 Hub from Supersense Technologies is an at-home monitoring service that protects the privacy and independence for people with dementia and makes caring easier for families

Thing

SuperSharp

Company

Synthetizor®

We help our clients build better defences against financial crime by translating financial crime intelligence into data resources with our simulation and synthetic data engine Synthetizor®

Thing

Theia Insights

Company

Tolemy Bio

Company

TRIMTECH Therapeutics

Neurodegenerative diseases affect more than 50 million people worldwide and are now the leading cause of death for both men and women in the UK. These diseases, which include Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s, are caused by protein aggregation inside cells. TRIMTECH’s unique technology targets and degrades aggregated proteins, without affecting non-aggregated forms, offering a solution that is both potent and offers outstanding safety

Company

Trismik

At Trismik, we’re focused on solving a key challenge: how do you efficiently and effectively test LLMs to ensure they behave as expected, accurately, without hallucination, and aligned with societal values?

Company

Vida Vodka

Thing

Virilitas Labs

Company

VyperCore

VyperCore's unprecedented technology offers up to 80% power reduction, with five-fold, memory safe, acceleration of future data centre server class managed-language applications across a vast spectrum of industries

Thing

Wave Photonics

Integrated photonics is used for energy-efficient communications for AI and data centres, rapid diagnostic tools, on-chip lidar, and quantum technologies. Wave Photonics is building design technology to enable and accelerate the development, mass production and adoption of this technology

Thing

xWatts

Company