Newsletter: VC Breakfast Club

/deals

💸 Wagestream has secured a £300m debt facility from Citi to expand its Workplace Loan offering, providing UK employees with fee-free payroll-deducted loans as part of its broader financial wellness platform.

🚢 Autonomous shipping startup Orca AI has raised $72.5M in Series B funding to scale its AI-powered platform, enhance safety capabilities, and expand into defence, saving fuel and cutting emissions across global maritime fleets.

📊 Ravio, a fintech founded by Deliveroo alumni, raised £9m Series A to modernise compensation benchmarking using real-time data from HR systems. Backers include Spark Capital, Blackbird, and Cherry Ventures.

🧠 AI self-hosting startup Doubleword has raised £9M in a round led by Dawn Capital to scale its inference platform, helping enterprises deploy AI models securely and efficiently without relying on third-party infrastructure.

🧵 Solena Materials, an Imperial College spinout, raised $6.7M to scale production of AI-designed, biodegradable protein fibers for sustainable apparel. The funding supports commercial partnerships and expansion of its next-gen textile platform.

🦺 Tended, a Lincoln-based wearable safety tech startup, raised £2M from Praetura and Blackfinch Ventures to expand its IP, grow the team, and enhance its geolocation-based hazard alert system for rail workers.

🛠️ London-based InsurTech Loxa raised €1.9M to expand its embedded product protection platform, helping UK retailers offer repair-first cover for items like tools, eyewear, and furniture at checkout.

🧘 Kent-based neurotech startup MindSpire raised £850k to launch SONA, a wearable that uses vagus nerve stimulation to manage stress and enhance focus. Backers include SFC Capital, SyndicateRoom, and Innovate UK’s Investor Partnership Programme.

🤖 18-year-old founder Arlan Rakhmetzhanov raised £637k for Nia, a London-based AI startup building autonomous engineering agents that deeply understand codebases and streamline developer workflows. Backers include LocalGlobe and YC-backed Artificial Societies.

🧬 Cambridge spinout Cellestial Health raised £515k pre-seed to develop astrocyte-targeting drugs for Parkinson’s, backed by Zinc VC, SFC Capital, and Parkinson’s UK, aiming to address neurodegeneration beyond symptom management.

📝 Ulla Technology has raised £500k to launch its AI-powered meeting assistant, offering privacy-first transcription, summaries, and chatbot features tailored for legal, government, and corporate sectors with full data control.

🥫 London-based Platter raised £350k in pre-seed funding to scale its all-in-one wholesale food platform, streamlining ordering, finance, and donations for food businesses. The platform targets a £96bn European market of over 1.1m potential customers.

😴 Zeus Sleep has raised £150k from British Design Fund to launch its wearable device tackling snoring and sleep apnoea using non-invasive nerve stimulation, aiming to improve sleep for one million people by 2035.

/tech

• 🔬 UK scientists have secured £500m in EU Horizon grants since rejoining in 2024, reigniting collaborative research and positioning the UK alongside Europe’s scientific leaders after a three-year Brexit-induced exclusion.

• 🛡️ The NCSC warns that preparing for post-quantum cryptography is a “decade-long, national-scale” shift - bigger than the Millennium Bug - with new consultancy support launched to guide UK organisations through the transition.

/flywheel

• The UK government has announced £30m in funding to boost spinouts across Merseyside, East Anglia, the Midlands, and the North East, supporting university innovation and public sector R&D commercialisation through its Plan for Change.

• Tech Nation unveiled the latest 25 scaleups joining the UK’s Future Fifty programme, including ElevenLabs, Abound, and Lawhive. The cohort spans fintech, climate tech, AI, and deeptech, collectively raising over £3bn and employing 1,800+.

• Slush’s 2025 Startup Struggle Survey reveals European founders face major challenges with fundraising, growth, and hiring - yet remain optimistic about building sustainable, mission-driven companies in a maturing ecosystem.

• In a Sifted oped this week Udai Dhamija argues Oxbridge must adopt a Bay Area-style startup mindset - embracing collaboration, risk, and a “pay-it-forward” culture - to rival Stanford and MIT as global hubs for AI innovation and entrepreneurship.

• David Farquhar, former IGS CEO and now TechTour Growth DeepTech president, is bringing 75+ global investors to Edinburgh to spotlight Scotland’s deeptech talent and catalyse scale-up funding for spinouts and startups.

/breakfast

• Training without the burn: smarter models, smaller footprints

• 5 UK startups solving for AI's energy problem

📸 /techbrunch

Every week I use Midjourney to reimagine a TechCrunch story from the week.

This week Amazon’s new Vulcan robot can “feel” and now handles high and low shelf tasks, leaving humans to pick only from the middle. The bot powers 75% of order fulfillment. Amazon is retraining some workers as robot techs, offering a glimpse into how automation might reshape - not erase - frontline jobs.

• Caption this in comments?