Illumion, a University of Cambridge spinout that builds imaging tools for battery research, has raised £1.7m. Foresight Group made a follow-on investment and ZEISS Ventures, the venture arm of the German optics group, joined as a new strategic backer. The round brings the company's disclosed equity funding to about £3.8m.
Illumion is commercialising a technique called charge photometry. The method lets researchers see what happens inside a working battery, down to how individual particles behave as the cell charges and discharges. Conventional battery testing struggles to capture that level of detail.
The company's first product, illumionONE, is built for research labs. A second platform, illumionX, is in development for industrial battery makers. It is designed to turn those insights into faster development cycles and better quality control on the production line.
The deal
Foresight Group put more money in alongside ZEISS Ventures. Existing backers Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, Parkwalk, Cambridge Angels and YourVC also took part. The valuation and the size of each investor's stake were not disclosed. Mills & Reeve advised Illumion on the round, with a team led by corporate partner Zickie Lim.
This is Illumion's second priced round. In December 2024 it closed a £2.1m seed round led by Foresight's ventures team, with investment from Foresight's Technology EIS and VCT funds. Cambridge Enterprise Ventures also invested. The company has since won an Innovate UK Growth Catalyst grant, which added non-dilutive funding to its balance sheet.
The £1.7m will go towards commercial development, the product roadmap and work with customers and partners across the battery industry.
Why the strategic investor matters
ZEISS Ventures gives Illumion its first corporate backer from the optics and imaging industry. For an early-stage hardware company, a strategic investor can open doors to distribution, manufacturing know-how and industrial customers that financial investors cannot. It can also make the company a more obvious acquisition target later on.
Foresight partner Andrew Bloxam said the company had made technical and commercial progress since Foresight first invested in 2024. He added that ZEISS Ventures' involvement showed the strategic relevance of Illumion's technology. Chief executive and co-founder Christoph Schnedermann said the round would help turn academic research into practical tools for battery developers.
What's next
The battery supply chain is under pressure from electric vehicle makers and grid storage developers. Both need cells that last longer, charge faster and fail less often. Illumion is betting that labs and manufacturers will pay for tools that show why cells degrade.
At £1.7m, this round is modest by deep-tech standards. That suggests a larger Series A will be needed once illumionX reaches industrial customers. For now, Illumion joins a growing group of Cambridge spinouts whose seed investors keep following on in later rounds.
Original source: BusinessCloud — https://businesscloud.co.uk/news/1-7m-to-supercharge-illumions-battery-imaging-tech/
