Northern Gritstone

Earth-friendly biotech solutions for the textile, packaging and construction industries.

Bio-based Materials

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 Floreon
 
 
 
 
 Floreon is a UK-based company that uses sugar cane and corn to create bioplastics. The company&rsquo;s eponymous bio-based thermoplastic is available in four grades: Durable/Dura-Tech; Flame Retardant/Therma-Tech; Injection Molding/Bio-Tech; and Extrusion/Floreon 3D-based on customer needs. Floreon has an 85% PLA content while retaining similar performance characteristics to ABS plastics, such as impact strength and Vicat softening temperature. The company claims its bioplastics production involves up to 6&ndash;7x lower emissions compared to traditional oil-based plastics.
 
 
 
 
 Use cases for the company&rsquo;s products include injection molding, toys, cutlery and drinkware, consumer electronics, home furnishings, packaging, and horticultural products. Floreon is also halogen-free in production and compatible with chemical and mechanical recycling. It can also be used in industrial composting, and the company is working on making its bioplastic home compostable.
 
 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships:
 
 
 Floreon partnered with the Biorenewables Development Centre for a chemical recycling trial, where it was able to recover 100% of the lactic acid feedstock which can be used to regenerate virgin polymer with no downcycling required. The company partnered with Tooth.eco to develop a plastic to be used for a single-use toothbrush in September 2021.
 
 
 
 
 Funding and Financials:
 
 
 In 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates?industryIds=45">
 November 2023
 </a>
 , the company secured GBP 2 million (~USD 2.5 million) in a Series A funding round led by Northern Gritstone to expand its team and facilitate the market introduction of its bioplastic products.
 
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Clear the air on carbon capture, reuse, and storage

Carbon Capture, Utilization & Storage (CCUS)

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 UK-based C-Capture produces materials that are used in carbon capture and storage (CCS) applications including absorbents and solvents. The company claims that its patented carbon capture technology consumes 40% less energy compared with other commercially available technologies. The technology employs new types of capture solvents that are amine and nitrogen-free, cost-effective, and safe. Additionally, the solvents used in the process can be produced on a large scale using biological sources.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 C-Capture&rsquo;s most recent funding round was in February 2021, when it raised GBP 8 million (USD 11 million) in venture funding led by IP Group, Drax, and BP Ventures. The proceeds were allocated to optimize the company&rsquo;s carbon capture technology and drive down costs. Previously, in November 2020, C-Capture received an undisclosed amount of funding from Innovate UK to explore its carbon capture technology&rsquo;s compatibility in decarbonizing the glass manufacturing industry.
 
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Using real-time data to create dynamic virtual representations of the real world

Digital Twin

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 Slingshot Simulations, a spin-out from the University of Leeds, has developed a digital twin tool to virtually model physical assets and processors. Its proprietary enterprise solution Compass: Engine automates data analytics from various sources to provide insights, visualizations, and simulations to understand the behavior of assets, thereby enabling the creation of a closed loop digital twin. It also allows companies to test processes and to strategically plan their activities. The company claims its platform will save 80% of the time taken to link data to generate a digital twin.
 
 
 The company is offering its tool in three packages: 1) Community, which is offered free of charge and has up to five users, 2) Standard, offered at USD 12 (GBP 10) per month with 10 users, and 3) Premium offered at USD 24 (GBP 20) per month with 25 users.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In January 2021, the company was part of the Yorkshire Geospatial Twin partnership along with engineering company Arup, BT Group, and city councils. This was a 12-week project to generate a digital twin to improve the transport network across three cities, mainly Leeds, York, and Hull city councils.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 The company raised USD 2 million (GBP 1.5 million) in a venture funding round in January 2021 with participation from existing investor NPIF &ndash; Mercia Equity Finance. The new funds were used to scale its operations and for its commercial launch.&nbsp;
 
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Phagenesis is developing a device for the treatment for dysphagia, the inability to swallow safely, that often accompanies stroke or other neuro-deficit diseases. The approach is to harness the brain's own capacity for relearning functions that have been lost through brain damage (via ''neuroplasticity'' or ''cortical remapping''). Focusing initially on the care of stroke patients as they recover in hospital (acute care), Prof Shaheen Hamdy of the University of Manchester, UK, painstakingly devised a method of delivering electrical signals from the pharynx (throat) along nerve cells directly to the relevant parts of the brain. The results of his work have been published in top peer-reviewed scientific and medical journals, including The Lancet, the Nature group of publications, and Gastroenterology.

Adsilico redefines medical device innovation.

Pragmatic is a ultra-low-cost flexible electronics. Their flexible integrated circuits (FlexICs) are thinner than human hair and can be invisibly embedded in objects, enabling innovators to create novel solutions to everyday problems that are not practical with conventional electronics. Designers can create their own application-specific flexible devices using our FlexIC Foundry® service at a fraction of the cost and time required for traditional silicon circuits, opening up multiple new markets. We also offer standard FlexIC products that extend proven applications such as RFID and NFC into mass market use cases, enabling the potential for trillions of smart objects that can engage with consumers and their environments. All FlexICs are manufactured on our revolutionary FlexLogIC® production system, a highly scalable manufacturing model for cost-effective high-volume production, achieved with orders of magnitude lower capital investment and operating cost compared to a traditional silicon IC fab. Our novel, differentiated technology is being adopted by a growing base of global companies across diverse markets, including consumer goods, retail, healthcare, pharmaceutical, gaming and security. Pragmatic is headquartered in Cambridge, UK, with our first billion-unit production facility in Sedgefield. Shareholders include Cambridge Innovation Capital, Arm and Avery Dennison.

Floreon is a specially formulated compound, which is added to standard bioplastic, polylactic acid (PLA) to create an innovative material with a sustainable origin and a range of end of life options. It was created from a desire for a greener, safer form of plastic. Unhappy with the options available they decided to develop their own. After four years and a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the University of Sheffield a unique, environmentally friendly, fully compostable and high performing bioplastic was born.

Pencil Biosciences aims to develop a novel, programmable genome-modulation tool that overcomes the challenges associated with the technologies currently available.

C-Capture Ltd utilise their extensive knowledge of CO2 (carbon dioxide) based chemistry and engineering, to develop a bottom-up approach to designing solvent systems for the removal of CO2 from gas streams. CO2 is considered to be a ‘greenhouse gas’ and its release into the atmosphere is one of the leading contributors to global warming.

Mimetrik is a developing solution to real-world healthcare problems that are now unsolved or inadequately addressed.

AssetCool is a thermal metaphotonics company. It produces photonic coatings and materials that enhance the functionality of electrical networks.

Optalysys solves the fundamental limitations of conventional computing. They develop optical AI systems that accelerate the demanding deep learning and pattern recognition tasks at groundbreaking speeds but at a fraction of the energy consumption of traditional computing hardware. The embeddable technology will enable supercomputing capability on edge and mobile devices.

LC AuxeTec is a materials company based on synthetic auxetic materials that enables resistance to high impact applications.

Recourse is a experiential skills development platform allows clinicians to immediately put theory into practice by simulating complex interactions with conversational digital humans. It support healthcare & life science organizations to achieve optimal performance.

Slingshot Simulations a provider of cutting-edge technologies and services, offering scalable simulation and Digital Twin solutions for businesses of all sizes.

QV Bioelectronics is striving to deliver longer, better quality lives to brain tumour patients through their first of its kind electric field therapy implant, GRACE. GRACE has been designed alongside some of the leading neurosurgeons in the UK, with the aim of extending patient life expectancy without impacting patient quality of life. For patients with the most common primary brain tumour, glioblastoma, there has been a severe lack of new, effective treatments for decades, with only a handful of approved options. Because of this, glioblastoma has some of the worst outcomes of any cancer, with a 5-year survival rate of <5. Co-founder and academic neurosurgeon Dr Richard Fu recognised this and was frustrated not only by the lack of treatments available for patients but also by major design flaws in newer electric field therapy approaches. Working together with Dr Chris Bullock, a biomedical engineer who had been carrying out research at Manchester's world-class materials research centres, they formed an elegant solution designed to optimise patient life-expectancy and quality of life. QV Bioelectronics was founded to their solution GRACE, to patients. Since then, their ground-breaking materials science research has received nearly $1M in financial awards from several UK institutions, including Innovate UK and the National Institute for Health Research in the UK, as well as over $1M in equity funding from international life science seed investors SOSV, and renowned life-science investors in Consilience & Catapult Ventures. QV now have an expert, multidisciplinary team with decades of experience working bringing GRACE to the clinic from their research hub in Alderley Park, Cheshire.

Phlux is a photonics company developing innovative light detector and imaging systems. Spun out from the University of Sheffield in September 2020, Phlux is developing high performance infrared sensors for LIDAR, fibre sensing and imaging systems.

Imperagen is a biotechnology research company focused on enzyme engineering, artificial intelligence, and synthetic biology.

Opteran operates as a natural intelligence company.

Northern Gritstone is an investment firm focused on investing in advanced materials, energy, health technology and cognitive computation.

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