I update this list of people in the Oxford community that are helping founders (DM me if you’d like to be included).
I run an agent search each week to populate what events for founders in Oxford are happening in the month ahead. **
Wild Bioscience raises £45 m Series A to scale AI‑powered crop improvement (20 Oct) – Oxford spinout Wild Bioscience, which uses AI and precision breeding to develop higher‑yield crops, closed a £45 million Series A led by the Ellison Institute of Technology with participation from Oxford Science Enterprises, Braavos Capital and the University of Oxford. Founded in 2021 by Dr Ross Hendron and Prof Steve Kelly, Wild Bio has grown to 30 staff and is trialling its technology in four countries.
QFX secures £2 million seed round for modular quantum hardware (20 Oct) – Quantum spin‑out QFX raised £2 million to develop modular quantum computers built on research from Oxford’s Department of Physics. Co‑founders Joe Goodwin, Rowen Trusler and Nicole Shang highlighted that the funding, led by investor Paul Graham, will help them recruit engineers and deliver pilot hardware to early adopters.
OrganOx acquired by Terumo in record £1.2 billion deal (31 Oct) – Organ preservation specialist OrganOx, founded by Professors Constantin Coussios and Peter Friend, was bought by Japanese medical‑device giant Terumo for US$1.5 billion. The sale marks the largest exit in Oxford’s spin‑out portfolio; OrganOx’s normothermic perfusion technology keeps donated organs viable longer, increasing the number available for transplant.
NavLive raises funding for real‑time 3D mapping (24 Oct) – Deep‑tech spin‑out NavLive, which originated from the Oxford Robotics Institute, raised capital through Oxford Innovation Finance and Innovate UK as part of a £4 million round. The company’s platform enables robots and autonomous vehicles to create real‑time 3D maps and localise themselves without GPS. NavLive plans to expand into the US and has already deployed its technology in logistics warehouses
£2 million secured for world‑first lung‑cancer prevention vaccine trial – Researchers at Oxford and University College London will test LungVax, an experimental vaccine designed to prevent lung cancer, thanks to £2.06 million from Cancer Research UK and the CRIS Cancer Foundation. The phase‑I clinical trial, expected in 2026, will assess dosing and safety; LungVax uses Oxford’s ChAdOx2 viral‑vector technology to train the immune system to recognise tumour antigens.
Air‑powered robots synchronize without electronics – Oxford engineers built soft robots that use fluidic circuits and air pressure instead of electronics. The robots can synchronise and perform rhythmic movements on their own, demonstrating “embodied intelligence” and pointing to future untethered, energy‑efficient machines.
Researchers reveal hidden energy cost in quantum timekeeping – A study co‑led by Oxford shows that reading a quantum clock’s ticks consumes up to a billion times more energy than running the clock itself. The finding, published in Physical Review Letters, implies that observation drives the thermodynamic cost of timekeeping and could inform design of future quantum technologies.
https://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/research/centres-and-initiatives/oxford-said-entrepreneurship-centre/oxford-venture-builder