These Are the Top 25 UK Startups to Watch for 2024

Polyurethane coats our lives — from face creams to clothes to car parts — the chemical represents 8% of the world’s plastics. Algreen, a startup co-founded by a PhD in chemical engineering, makes a biodegradable alternative. With production hubs in Asia, North America and Europe, it targets customers spanning from fashion to the automotive industry.

Algreen’s product can be used in auto parts, shoes and can help cosmetic makers phase out microplastics.

The average age of an electricity distribution transformer in the UK is 67 years, and an overhaul of the grid is long overdue. That inspired the team behind Allye Energy to come up with an “AWS of energy storage.”

The Allye MAX system uses a combination of car batteries (the company sources batteries from low-mileage cars) to store energy at the edge of the grid and software to redeploy it intelligently where it’s needed most. The system can reduce costs for homes, businesses and industrial users by as much as 50%.

ANNA stands for Absolutely No Nonsense Admin. The company’s app promises to help small businesses complete tasks like taxes and accounting in 10 minutes a week. Users can take care of most of the financial admin via an app that acts on chat requests like “What are my bank details?” or “Get account statement.”

The company has 78,000 business users in the UK and plans to launch business accounts with admin and taxes in Australia next month.

Arondite builds AI tools and software for the military that aims to improve communication between the sensors, robotics and autonomous systems used across the defense industry and the humans overseeing them.

Prior to founding Arondite, Will Blyth served as an infantry officer in the British Army, and later worked in the Ministry of Defense. His co-founder Rob Underhill was a lead engineer at BAE systems before becoming head of the product group at Garrison Technology.

Ever been so frustrated by a 30-second ad on YouTube that you simply close the tab? Traditional advertising in games can be so disruptive that some players just quit. That’s what inspired Christian Facey and Wilfrid Obeng, Google alums and video game fanatics, to develop audio ads.

The idea is simple: soundbytes are less intrusive for gamers, who can continue to play while still absorbing the message. The company is expanding into non-game apps and podcast advertising.

Basecamp says its foundational model, Basefold, uses the largest ethically sourced database of biological information, which can recreate “the full complexity of biology in a supercomputer.” The model allows them, together with biopharma companies and research institutions to design novel proteins that can be used to enable a new generation of medicines.

Interest in AI that can transform biology is on the rise. The same day the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences handed out the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry for AI that can predict protein shapes, Basecamp Research announced a $60 million funding round to finance its own research.

It all started when Aidan Rushby wanted to buy a used car for a vacation — he wanted to bring his two dachshunds on a trip to Majorca. What he didn’t want was to pay the dealer the standard 20% commission on the loan amount. Along with his co-founders, he designed an app to give fast, pre-approved financing for used car purchases.

Three years and £246 million in funding later, Carmoola is on track for a revenue run rate of £10.2 million by the end of this year and seeks to become profitable within about 18 months.

Widespread shortages of everything from semiconductors to toilet paper during the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted just how complicated modern supply chains can be. Circulor’s technology aims to bring traceability to these complex networks to help companies cut emissions and boost efficiency.

Circulor assigns a unique identities to critical materials used in manufacturing and tracks them from extraction to final production. It has raised $45 million and has partnered with Volvo, Polestar, Tesla, BHP, and other companies in the automotive, mining and clean energy sectors.

“You’re so broke it pains me.” Meet Cleo, the AI chatbot that’s helping Gen Z get its financial house in order, one insult at a time. (The app also offers a “hype” mode for users who want more encouragement.)

Cleo’s appeal comes from edgy humor, a freemium subscription model and tools that help users track spending and hit savings targets. The London-based company has raised more than $137 million and has 7 million users. It’s currently only available to users in the US.

CloudNC is looking to transform precision manufacturing with AI. The company’s CAM Assist product speeds up the task of programming CNC machines, which use software to operate factory tools and whose complexity is a bottleneck for the industry. The London-based company says its AI can help save manufacturers hundreds of programming hours a year.

CloudNC’s CAM Assist software has been on the market since mid-2023. To date it’s raised $78 million from investors including Autodesk, Atomico and Lockheed Martin.

Cusp AI wants to combat climate change by supercharging the discovery of sustainable materials. The Cambridge-headquartered company, which boasts “godfather of AI” and recent Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton on its advisory board, uses generative AI, deep learning and molecular simulation to power a highly specialized search engine. Users describe the specific properties they’d like a new material to have, and the platform responds with a chemical makeup.

Co-founder Max Welling was a distinguished scientist at Microsoft Research; and CEO and co-founder Chad Edwards is a chemist who worked in deep-tech commercialization at Google. In its latest funding round, the company secured $30 million from investors including Hoxton Ventures, Basis Set Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Founded in East London, Datamaran was created to bring order to “the complex world of ESG risk and reward.” The company monitors reputational and regulatory threats, and helps clients track adherence to changing rules in real-time, with analytics tailored to particular supply chains and fields.

Clients include Kraft Heinz, Dell, Deloitte and PepsiCo. In their last funding round in September, Datamaran secured $33 million.

Electron is aiming to accelerate the transition to renewable sources of energy by changing the way it’s traded. As grids are increasingly overwhelmed, the company’s “distributed flexibility marketplace” enables generators and local energy markets to optimize energy flows and network capacity in real time.

The company recently raised £5 million in an investment round led by East Innovate with participation from Riverstone, Nesta and One Planet capital.

Dmitry and Yuri Gurski, brothers from Belarus, developed Flo, a menstruation and ovulation tracking app, after recognizing the limitations of the period-tracking apps then on the market. In addition to helping users monitor their cycles and pregnancy, Flo takes a broader approach to women’s health with tailored insights and a discussion forum for users.

The London-based company has about 70 million monthly active users and around five million paid subscribers. It recently secured more than $200 million from private equity firm General Atlantic, which it plans to partly use to focus on menopause, and put its valuation at more than $1 billion.

Disappointed by the shadow fast fashion had cast on the industry, Victoria Prew co-founded Hurr as a peer-to-peer rental platform for luxury brands. Users can either “rent” or “lend” an item for as many as 30 days, with lenders setting their prices and handing delivery.

The company has more than 130 exclusive brand partnerships and also offers retailers the ability to launch their own in-house rental services.

IComat says its innovative use of carbon fiber can help dramatically reduce the weight of parts for fighter planes to Formula 1 cars. The lighter composites are also in demand from Europe’s space industry where they can make launches cheaper.

The startup is a spinout from the University of Bristol, and has secured backing from NATO’s venture fund, which co-led iComat’s $22.5 million funding round alongside 8VC.

Traditional cybersecurity training courses can be lengthy, tedious and ineffective. Immersive Labs offers an alternative — a hands-on cyber training through real-world simulations for a client’s entire workforce. It counts HSBC, Citi and Pfizer among its customers.

Scenarios the company simulates include: data breaches, denial-of-service, insider threats, malicious code and ransomware attacks. It’s also sensitive to the ever-evolving nature of cyber risks — Immersive Labs will often update its content offering within 48 hours of a new threat emerging.

Buying carbon credits is a popular way for companies to meet green targets, but how do you vet the busineses selling them? Isometric wants to serve as the go-to registry, aiming to pull back the veil on the growing number of startups that claim to be pulling carbon from the atmosphere. Its scientists help carbon-removal companies develop protocols that can help develop trust and uniformity in the credits system.

Isometric, which secured $25 million in seed financing last year, has also launched a publicly accessible online platform where scientists and researchers can comment on data provided by carbon renewal startups.

LabGenius uses an AI-powered approach to accelerate the creation of new medical antibodies. The startup’s smart robotic platform is capable of designing, conducting and learning from its own experiments. LabGenius is using that platform to develop therapeutics capable of selectively identifying and killing cancer cells.

In its most recent batch of funding, the company raised £35 million in a round led by M Ventures, with participation from Octopus Ventures, LG Corp., Atomico, Kindred Capital, Lux Capital and Obvious Ventures.

Formed as a spinout of the University of Oxford, ORCA develops full-stack photonic quantum computing systems. The company aims to make the power of quantum computing available for real-world applications, like generative machine learning.

It has partnered with Nvidia and the Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center to develop hybrid approaches that combine quantum with classical computing. The UK’s Ministry of Defence and Montana State University are among its customers, and the latter bought two of ORCA’s quantum computers in an investment funded by the US Air Force.

Getting a new drug to market typically takes 10 to 15 years, three phases of clinical trials, and more than $1 billion. Sano Genetics wants to expedite this process for precision medicine, where treatments are tailored to the individual based on their DNA. Sano’s platform combines genetic testing and the recruitment of patients to clinical trials, which helps cut the time and cost of discovering new treatments.

Co-founded by three graduate students at the University of Cambridge, Sano most recently raised $11.4 million in a funding round led by VC firm Plural. It has also secured several innovation grants to fund rare disease studies including long Covid and ALS.

Secondmind’s software helps carmakers design better, more efficient vehicles. Secondmind’s cloud-native products let engineers develop, refine and test their designs in a virtual setting. This can potentially cut the development time for new cars to weeks from months.

The Cambridge-based company has a multi-year partnership with Japanese automaker Mazda, which has used its technology to tune its engines more efficiently. Now led by CEO Gary Brotman, it raised $16 million in funding last year from investors including Amadeus Capital Partners, Atlantic Bridge Ventures and Cambridge Innovation Capital.

People living with dementia often struggle to handle their daily finances and can end up being scammed, overspending or losing money as their confusion increases. Jayne Sibley saw this first hand with her late mother and co-founded Sibstar to help.

The Sibstar debit card can be loaded with chosen amounts of money and managed by a family member via an app. This allows the cardholder to maintain financial independence with safeguards to prevent them from being exploited.

The Southampton-based company gained national attention when it received £125,000 on TV show Dragon’s Den from investors Deborah Meaden and Sara Davies. It has partnerships with Mastercard and the Alzheimer’s Society.

A skin cancer referral in the UK can often take weeks, in part due to a lack of dermatologists. Skin Analytics has developed an AI-powered system to lessen the burden on the health system. DERM can analyze pictures of moles and other skin lesions taken on a smartphone within seconds and identify if it’s malignant, pre-malignant or benign. This frees up dermatologists to focus on treatment.

The company currently has 18 NHS partnerships using DERM and has seen more than 140,000 patients since 2020.

Wayve is developing what it calls “embodied AI” for self-driving cars, enabling them to learn from situations that don’t follow strict rules, such as erratic or unexpected actions by drivers, pedestrians or cyclists. It has run tests of its technology on delivery routes for grocery retailers Asda and Ocado.

The London-based company raised more than $1 billion in a funding round led by SoftBank this year, with Microsoft and chipmaker Nvidia among the investor pool.