Oxford University spinout Living Optics has closed an oversubscribed $20m (about £15.1m) round led by BRV Capital Management, with five new investors including Lockheed Martin Ventures, Applied Ventures, Lam Capital and the British Business Bank. Valuation was not disclosed.
Living Optics builds hyperspectral cameras, which record far more bands of light than a conventional sensor and so can identify materials by their spectral signature. The company was founded in 2019 on research from the University of Oxford's Department of Physics and is based in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.
Its platform pairs video-rate spectral imaging with on-device computing, so the data can be analysed in real time rather than processed afterwards. Target markets are industrial inspection, defence, life sciences and environmental monitoring.
The round was announced on 5 October. BRV Capital Management, a growth investor operating across the US and Asia, led it.
Five names are new to the shareholder register: Lockheed Martin Ventures, Applied Ventures, Lam Capital, Singapore's GK Goh and the British Business Bank.
Existing backers Octopus Ventures, Foresight Group and OTIF Ventures invested again. Oxford Science Enterprises and Braavos Group are among the company's earlier investors.
The company described the round as oversubscribed. Terms, including post-money valuation and the size of individual cheques, were not disclosed, and the British Business Bank did not say how much it committed or through which programme.
Dealroom puts Living Optics' total funding at about $52m including this round.
The make-up of the syndicate is the notable part of the deal. Applied Ventures and Lam Capital are the venture arms of Applied Materials and Lam Research, two of the world's largest suppliers of chip-making equipment, where optical inspection is a core process step.
Lockheed Martin Ventures adds a defence prime.
Three corporate investors arriving in one round gives Living Optics potential customers and channel partners on its cap table, in the two sectors where hyperspectral sensing has the clearest industrial demand.
The British Business Bank framed its participation in policy terms. Mark Barry, a senior investment director at the bank, called the platform highly differentiated and said the investment fits the UK's industrial strategy on advanced manufacturing and strategically important technologies such as semiconductors.
Living Optics said the capital will be used to scale deployment of its camera platform worldwide, across its main vertical markets and geographies.
The register is now international. A US and Asia-based lead, American strategic investors and a Singaporean investor sit alongside the UK state development bank and the domestic venture firms that funded the company's earlier stages.
For the earlier investors, the question the round leaves open is price. Without a disclosed valuation, the dilution taken by seed and Series A holders cannot be calculated from public information.
The company has not set out a timetable for a further raise.
Original source: British Business Bank — https://www.british-business-bank.co.uk/news-and-events/news/british-business-bank-invests-living-optics-which-has-secured-20-million-financial-and-strategic
