Winners 

2021

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 Description People / Company / Thing Longlist Shortlist Top 21

10to8

Company ✓

3D perception software

Efficient AI-based 3D sensing software solution for resource-constrained platforms to deliver safety for the automotive and transport industries

Thing ✓ ✓ ✓

AC Biode

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Actiphage

Thing ✓

Agile Analog

Founded to accelerate the pace of chip innovation by providing smaller, cheaper, more reliable, and lower power analog chip designs. Agile’s AI-driven platform replaces the existing manual design process, which has not fundamentally changed in 60 years

Company ✓ ✓

Agxio

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AI VIVO

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Alchemab Therapeutics

Company ✓

Alchemie Technology

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Aleksandra Pedraszewska

Co-founder and COO at VividQ - a deep tech company with world-leading expertise in computer-generated holography. VividQ software and IP powers the next-generation of augmented reality (AR) wearables, head-up displays (HUD) and consumer electronics

People ✓ ✓ ✓

Alex Hughes

People ✓

Ambify

Company ✓

Ansible Motion

Company ✓

Antobot

Company ✓

Anvil

Thing ✓

Axon Vibe

Thing ✓

Ayaka Shinozaki

Ayaka is a backend engineer at techspert.io. She has been named AI Professional of the Year for the Computing AI & Machine Learning Awards 2020

People ✓ ✓

BeadReady

Atelerix provides scalable methods of cell preservation, transport and re-presentation for patient administration to offer cell therapy developers and manufacturers flexibility in workflows, and remove the need for expedited shipments of frozen packages

Thing ✓ ✓

Better Origin X1

Fully automated insect mini-farm that uses AI to manage the process on farmers' behalf. Our science-driven solution adds value, improves productivity, yield and animal welfare, while delivering 130% ROI

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Bimodal Electric Tissue Ablation (BETA)

Ablatus has been awarded over £1M by the UK government to develop their novel minimally invasive treatment for soft tissue tumours. The award will fund a 2-year project to develop the prototype device into a final version for use in patients for the first time

Thing ✓ ✓

BIOS Health

Company ✓

Blue Tap

Blue Tap is an award-winning social enterprise that aims to change the way the world consumes water. Using 3D printing, we are developing low-cost water purification technology for communities in low-income and emerging economies

Company ✓ ✓

C2-AI

Company ✓

Cambridge Cancer Genomics

Builds the software to enable data-driven precision oncology. The precision AI platform analyses and interprets tumour DNA, enabling oncologists to provide more effective, personalised treatment for cancer patients

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Cambridge Future Tech

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Cambridge Raman Imaging Ltd

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  Camena Bioscience 

Company ✓

Camnexus

Company ✓

  Carmen Palacios-Berraquero

People ✓

Carol Cheung

Carol is a DeepTech Venture Capital investor, her current investment focus is on autonomous systems, AI and machine learning, cloud computing, and fintech. Carol currently manages CIC’s investment in Cytora and GeoSpock

People ✓ ✓

Carryr

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Catherine Elton

Catherine leads Qkine, where we are driving innovation in the growth factor protein supply chain. These proteins are essential for culturing stem cells used to develop technologies with potential to transform lives, such as precision medicine, cell therapy and the emerging cultured meat industry

People ✓ ✓ ✓

CC Bio

Company ✓

Censeo

Thing ✓

Chorus Intelligence 

Company ✓

Chronomics

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Citispotter Limited 

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Colorifix

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ConcR

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Connect4

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Conundrum

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Cornelius Palm

People ✓

Cydar Medical

Cydar’s AI powered imaging software means safer, shorter, less invasive operations, a lighter cognitive load for surgeons, and better outcomes for patients

Company ✓ ✓

Cyted

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Dataswift.io

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DefiniGEN

Company ✓

  DNA Transform Kit 

Thing ✓

Dr Andrea De Luca 

A researcher turned entrepreneur and CEO. Co-founded Flusso, and now enjoying fully the journey in building something remarkable

People ✓ ✓

Dr Catherine Ramsdale

People ✓

Dr Christopher Proctor

People ✓

Dr Gareth Conduit 

People ✓

Dr Keith Tsui

People ✓

Dr Niall Gallen 

People ✓

  Dr Ramsey Faragher

People ✓

Dr Raoul-Gabriel Urma

People ✓

Dr Saif Ahmad

People ✓

Dr Thuria Wenbar

Thuria is a practicing A&E doctor, programmer and CEO of e-Surgery, a paperless prescription service and pharmacy. Alongside advocating for patient safety, accessibility and efficiency, Thuria heads the technology division of DAUK, campaigning and lobbying on behalf of front-line doctors

People ✓ ✓

Dr Tom Stubbs

Tom is CEO and founder of UK-based biotechnology Chronomics, founded on the use of epigenetics to give people the knowledge of how their environment and lifestyle is imprinting itself on their DNA and affecting their health. He is a specialist in Epigenetics, Machine Learning, and Computational Biology

People ✓ ✓ ✓

DressCode

Thing ✓

  Drishti Discoveries 

Company ✓

Eagle Genomics

Award-winning AI augmented knowledge discovery platform, the e[automateddatascientist], is revolutionising how scientists conduct life sciences research and is bridging the gap between data and new insights in a rapid, systematic and traceable way

Company ✓ ✓

Echion Technologies

Echion's promise to reduce the charging time for electric cars to six minutes moved closer with the demonstration of a six-minute charge, 3Ah Li-ion battery cell with 35% improvement in anode volumetric capacity over commercial competitors. This is only the beginning of what we can achieve

Company ✓ ✓ ✓

 Education Platform 

Thing ✓

 Ellie Galanis 

People ✓

  Engage Health Systems

Company ✓

 Enhanc3D Genomics 

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eqWave

Thing ✓

Faradair

Company ✓

Feedback

Company ✓

Fiona Rust

People ✓

Flit

Flit develops lightweight folding electric bikes for busy urban commuters

Thing ✓ ✓

Flusso

 Flusso, a fabless semiconductor company originally spun-out from Cambridge University, developed the world’s smallest flow sensor as part of a flow sensing solution easy to incorporate in low-cost, high-volume applications

Company ✓ ✓ ✓

Focal Point Positioning

Company ✓

Francesca O'Hanlon

Francesca founded Blue Tap after working as a water and sanitation engineer in Mexico, India, and with Médecins sans frontières in South Sudan and The Central African Republic. She is currently completing her PhD at the University of Cambridge in Water Security and Climate Resilience

People ✓ ✓ ✓

FXhome

Thing ✓

Gallium Nitride power modules

CGD leads the European funded GANEXT project under the PENTA Programme, targeting the design and development on highly efficient, highly compact prototypes of next-generation Gallium Nitride power modules, for low and high power applications

Thing ✓ ✓

George Bailey

George Bailey, a student at UEA in Norwich, had a vision to create a range of renewable glasses and sunglasses from a material called Econyl

People ✓ ✓

Ghina Halabi

 Herdsy is an award-winning international technology company, that has developed a technology that helps to solve the biggest issue in the Beef Industry, namely sustainability

People ✓

Giorgia Longobardi 

Giorgia has a PhD in power devices from Cambridge University. Since 2009 she has been working on GaN power devices design and characterisation gaining extensive and in-dept knowledge of GaN reliability

People ✓ ✓ ✓

Gita Khalili Moghaddam

Gita is a UKRI Innovation Scholar at the University of Cambridge leading the use of AI in medical technologies and therapeutics. In her entrepreneurial role, she established TumourVue and GlycoVue

People ✓ ✓ ✓

Goodery

Company ✓

Hakim Yadi

People ✓

Happyr Health 

Thing ✓

HexagonFab 

Company ✓

Iceni Diagnostics

Iceni Diagnostics develops carbohydrate-based point-of-care diagnostics and vaccines for infectious diseases, using its unique, proprietary HPGR(Trademarked) technology. Iceni has a strong pipeline of products currently lead by a Covid-19 diagnostic

Company ✓ ✓ ✓

iLevel

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In2Med

Thing ✓

Inawisdom

 Inawisdom's focus is on differentiation through data exploitation, using the latest enterprise-ready techniques in predictive analytics, machine learning, natural language processing and artificial intelligence to exploit latent value in organisation’s data assets

Company ✓ ✓

Intellegens

Company ✓

Intelligent Clothing 

Thing ✓

 Intellisense.io

Intellisense.io has created a real-time decision-making platform and AI powered applications that are enabling major mining corporations to improve productivity, save energy and reduce their water usage around the world

Company ✓ ✓

 INZIC (Industrial Net Zero Innovation Centre)

Thing ✓

IOTA Pharmaceuticals

Company ✓

IR Spectroscopy for point-of-care testing

Glyconics® is developing a range of Miniaturized InfraRed (IR) products for Point of Care exploiting the ability of IR to produce distinctive molecular ‘fingerprints’ in samples. Our 1st application is Screening for Type 2 diabetes - a major global challenge

Company ✓ ✓ ✓

Jane Osbourn 

People ✓

Jason Mellad

Jason is a scientist entrepreneur passionate about translating innovative technologies into more effective therapies and better patient outcomes. Before founding Start Codon in 2019, he was CEO of Cambridge Epigenetix

People ✓ ✓

Jean De La Verpilliere

People ✓

Jenny Tillotson

Dr Jenny Tillotson is the Founder of "eScent", a patented wearable liquid delivery technology offering "personalised scent" for self-controlled activation to enhance mood and wellbeing in PPE, FashionTech, BeautyTech, gaming etc

People ✓ ✓

Jeroen Verheyen

People ✓

Jiao Li

People ✓

Kalium Health

 Kalium Health is working to help millions of people living with kidney disease to manage their health at home. Their digital blood electrolyte monitoring platform is based on sensing technology developed at the University of Cambridge

Company ✓ ✓ ✓

Kanta Dihal

People ✓

  Katie Underwood

People ✓

Leaf Expression Systems

Leaf Expression Systems is an innovative contract development and manufacturing organisation specialising in plant-based production of proteins, vaccines and complex natural products for research and commercial applications using Hypertrans®, Leaf’s proprietary high yielding transient expression technology

Company ✓ ✓ ✓

 Lightcast Discovery

Cell manipulation platform that uses tiny spots of light to control thousands of cells and reagents simultaneously, allowing us to radically alter drug discovery workflows for the pharmaceutical industry

Company ✓ ✓

Limpet

Thing ✓

lone worker safety platform

Safepoint helps businesses protect and organise their staff whilst they are working alone or in high-risk situations via an app, panic buttons, a control centre, and 24/7 emergency responders

Thing ✓ ✓

Loubna Bouarfa 

People ✓

Map of Ag Platform

Map of Ag’s vision is to be the most trusted global data platform connecting farms and industry. They can control how and where data is used, allowing us and third parties to develop innovative solutions that drive efficiency, transparency and Net Zero

Thing ✓ ✓ ✓

Mario de Miguel Ramos

People ✓

Medwyse

Thing ✓

 Metrion Biosciences 

Company ✓

Microbiotica 

Company ✓

Microfluid X

Company ✓

Muhdo Health

Company ✓

Mursla

Mursla, a liquid biopsy company, has raised £410K from the UK Government’s Future Fund and existing investors and secured a £40K COVID-19 grant from the Cambridgeshire Capital Grant Scheme. The funding will enable Mursla to finalise its work on its novel exosome-based liquid biopsy platform, ExoPheno™, with the aim of demonstrating how the platform can detect cancer signatures in plasma from solid tumours via exosomes

Company ✓ ✓

 Nanna Therapeutics 

Company ✓

NeoPhore

Company ✓

 NeutroCheck

Company ✓

Nicola Filzmoser 

People ✓

Nu Quantum 

Company ✓

Okra Technologies

Company ✓

Online Science Lessons

Developing Experts offers a science curriculum for schools and a careers and recruitment platform for the whole family designed to connect the world of work to learning. We empower employers to recruit responsibly by supporting our users to make informed choices about their future careers to build the diverse workforce the industry needs

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Oppilotech

Company ✓

Orca Scan

Thing ✓

Outfield

Company ✓

 Owen Thompson

People ✓

Pallav Sethiya

People ✓

PetMedix

Company ✓

PharmEnable

Company ✓

PitPat

Thing ✓

Plant-based resin technology

A startup company designed to develop and commercialise technology using readily available biopolymer and biomass to manufacture a next generation adhesive platform to cover wood panel industry, packaging, medical devices, cosmetics and other niche applications

Thing ✓ ✓

Plastometrex

Plastometrex combine cutting edge materials science and numerical methods to create advanced materials testing technologies. These reduce testing times from hours (or days) to just 3 minutes while producing uniquely rich & actionable data sets

People ✓ ✓

PlayFusion

Company ✓

 POCKiT diagnostics

Company ✓

Porotech

Company ✓

 Premier Econergy

Company ✓

Professor Julian Gough

People ✓

Professor Justin O'Grady

Prof O’Grady is an expert on the diagnosis of infectious diseases. During the pandemic, his group have sequenced >10,000 SARS-CoV-2 genomes from the region (as part of COG-UK - www.cogconsortium.uk) which identifies new variants and helps with strategies to reduce transmission in the community, hospitals and care homes

People ✓ ✓ ✓

Qkine

Company ✓

Rainbird AI

Rainbird's truly intelligent automation lets you build visual models of your smartest employees’ thought processes, then uses these models to automate decision making at rates typically 100x faster and 25% more accurate, with full explainability

Company ✓ ✓

ReCoVa-19

Thing ✓

Reflection Therapeutics

Harnessing anti-inflammatory cell therapies to treat neurodegeneration. Shared the inaugural LifeArc 'Accelerate@Babraham Award'

Company ✓ ✓

Rehook

Company ✓

Riverlane

Company ✓

Rosanna Kierney

Rosanna Kierney is the founder and CEO of RecruitmentJunky, a tech-specialist recruitment firm supporting fast-growth businesses. Learning from first-hand industry experience, RecruitmentJunky is challenging the way traditional recruitment is done

People ✓ ✓

Ruizhi Wang

People ✓

Satavia

SATAVIA's vision is to eliminate 2% of human climate impact by making aviation smarter and greener

Company ✓ ✓ ✓

 Self Distancing Assistant

Thing ✓

Semarion

Company ✓

Simpleas

Thing ✓

Skinlync

Company ✓

Smartmask 

Thing ✓

  Solar Polar Limited

Company ✓

Sook Spaces

Sook's modular fit out allows occupiers to rapidly create a bespoke environment using digital content, audio, lighting and furniture in empty spaces. Renting by the hour allows users to target specific times priced appropriately for external footfall

Thing ✓

Sorex Sensors

Company ✓

Speechmatics

Company ✓

Spirea

Company ✓

Spotta Bed Pod

Spotta aims to be the world leader in smart pest detection. Their core technology is ultra-low-power insect monitoring that detects infestations early

Thing ✓ ✓ ✓

StarDrop

Thing ✓

Steve Brierley 

People ✓

 Stroma Biosciences 

Company ✓

Tailor Bio

Company ✓

techspert.io

Thing v

Thyngs platform

 Thyngs is a physical-digital marketing and payments platform for charities and brands. Using smartphone technology, businesses can take touch-free payments, reward customer loyalty, and fundraise despite the pandemic

Thing ✓ ✓

Tony Murdock 

People ✓

TrainAsONE«

Thing ✓

Turation

Thing ✓

Veena Adityan

People ✓

ViewRanger

Thing ✓

Virtual Nick

Thing ✓

VisusNano

Company ✓

VividQ

Company ✓

 Wyld Networks 

Company ✓

XGenomes

Company ✓

Yupar Myint

People ✓

Zedify

 Cambridge-based Zedify has been shaking up the UK delivery sector since 2018 when its network of UK zero emission hubs launched, with operations now in 10 UK cities. Their ethical and responsible service is about making cities better for everyone who uses them; helping to bring about cleaner air, less congestion and more liveable streets

Company ✓ ✓