BGF
BGF, founded in 2011 as the Business Growth Fund, is one of the UK's most active growth capital investors, backing small and mid-sized businesses across the UK and Ireland. Investing from a balance sheet of GBP 2.5 billion, BGF takes a long-term, non-controlling approach across early-stage, growth-stage, and quoted companies. Its deep tech portfolio includes battery startup Gaussion, metals recycling innovator DEScycle, and autonomous vehicle software developer Oxbotica. To date, BGF has invested over GBP 4 billion in more than 600 companies.
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3 companies in our directory
Cambridge GaN Devices
HiringCambridge GaN Devices was spun out from Cambridge University's Department of Engineering in 2016 by Dr Giorgia Longobardi (CEO) and Professor Florin Udrea (CTO). The fabless semiconductor company designs and commercialises gallium nitride power transistors and integrated circuits through its proprietary ICeGaN technology, enabling energy efficiency levels exceeding 99% and reducing energy consumption by up to 50% in applications including data centre power supplies and automotive electric vehicles. The technology builds on decades of GaN research at Cambridge, with Udrea's work recognised through induction into the ISPSD Hall of Fame. The company raised $32M in a Series C in February 2025, bringing total funding to over $60M from investors including IQ Capital, ParkWalk, BGF, Cambridge Innovation Capital, Foresight Group, and British Patient Capital.
Moa Technology
Moa Technology spun out of the University of Oxford's Department of Plant Sciences in 2017, founded by Professor Liam Dolan FRS and Dr Clement Champion, and is led by chief executive Dr Virginia Corless, an astrophysicist by training. The company hunts for herbicides with genuinely novel modes of action, the first new mechanisms the industry has found in roughly three decades, using plant-led discovery platforms that screen live plants rather than isolated enzymes. Moa has screened over 750,000 compounds and identified more than 70 candidate modes of action. In 2024 it signed a global commercial deal with Australian agrochemical group Nufarm covering one chemical class, which moved to its next phase in September 2025. In July 2026 Moa raised a £22.2M Series C co-led by Oxford Science Enterprises and Supernova Invest, with GrainInnovate, Magdalen College Oxford, Lansdowne Partners and Parkwalk Advisors participating.
TidalSense
TidalSense was founded in Cambridge in 2013 and is led by chief executive Dr Ameera Patel, a physician and engineer, alongside co-founder and chief engineering officer Julian Carter. Its N-Tidal device reads the carbon dioxide waveform of ordinary tidal breathing, so a patient breathes normally into a handheld sensor for 75 seconds instead of performing the forced manoeuvre spirometry demands, and machine learning models classify the resulting curve. A clinician can assess four to six patients an hour rather than roughly one, and any healthcare professional can run the test after ten minutes of training. In March 2025 N-Tidal Diagnose became the first non-spirometry AI diagnostic device to receive CE marking under EU MDR (Class IIa) for COPD. It entered NHS service in September 2025 and has raised $40M in total, including $11M in grants and a $19M round led by Cross-Border Impact Ventures in July 2026.