Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund (NPIF) is an initiative launched by the government-owned British Business Bank.  It is a key part of the government’s ‘Northern Powerhouse’ vision, which aims to end the historic North / South divide and create economic prosperity in the North of England on par with London and the South East.  The government firmly believes that SMEs form the foundation of the region’s future growth. NPIF therefore aims to nurture regional entrepreneurship by providing investment and support for small and medium businesses between 2016 and 2021. NPIF's funding will support new and growing SMEs, create jobs and encourage and attract additional private sector investment.

Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund

ADV is a patient venture investment engine. Its team are entrepreneurs and operators who have learnt the hard lessons and want to pay them forward. Currently investing £150M, ADV takes the long view of business building, investing across the funding lifecycle of startups, scaleups and ‘scalebigs’. ADV champions the innovators - the people who build complex, technical, generation-defining businesses. ADV’s investors are British Business Bank, Legal & General and Woodford Investment Management.

Enterprise IT infrastructure focused technology investment firm based in London

Skylake Capital

Bloc Ventures is an investment company focused on investments in early-stage Deep Tech companies. Pitch directly to Bloc here: https://blocventures.com/pitching/ Bloc Ventures is not an investment fund, it is a company that invests in early-stage tech companies. Bloc Ventures is very much a company in the traditional sense, with a rigorous focus on governance, costs, and profit, governed by a board of directors with an operational model that enables its stakeholders to focus on building value through a longer-term collaborative and evergreen approach to early-stage tech investing. The company was founded in 2013 and is based in London, England.

Bloc Ventures

Mindtrace

Mindtrace has built Artificial Intelligence that is brain-inspired and delivers an intelligent system that is trained using ‘few shot learning’ as we teach a human! The goal to develop novel neuromorphic algorithms that automatically make intelligent decisions in a measured and predictable manner. The intelligent machines can continuously and autonomously learn about real world use cases using as few as 20 images or instances in as little as 10 working days! The knowledge for predictive decision-making increases detections, identifying data from 2D and 3D images, laser scans, LiDAR or even ultrasonic outputs in a fraction of a second for any industry or use such as manufacturing, aerospace, automotive, asset inspection, pharma, military and healthcare where Mindtrace can detect anomalies in cells and accurately identify cancer cells and event heart defects, saving 3,000 clinician days a year.

Mindtrace is an AI software solutions provider founded in November 2017, headquartered in Manchester, UK. The company specializes in developing 'brain-inspired' AI solutions that minimize the need for large amounts of labeled data, allowing for faster learning and more intelligent AI that adapts to changing real-life conditions. Mindtrace's flagship technology, Brain-Sense, enables enterprises to improve operational efficiencies and generate new revenue opportunities through product and service differentiation.

Manchester-based Mindtrace raises $3 million to grow enterprise AI software

AI startup MindTrace raises £1.3 million to build its car collision avoidance system

Creative Destruction Lab

AI start-up MindTrace raises £1.3m

Insight Platforms

Manchester AI software provider Mindtrace secures $3m boost

Mindtrace Website – Computer Vision Brains for Enterprises

Reinventing how computers think based on biological neural networks

Neuromorphic Computing

Mindtrace AI Joins Esri Startup Program to Enhance Geospatial Intelligence

Mindtrace is an AI software solutions provider founded in November 2017, headquartered in Manchester, UK. The company specializes in developing 'brain-inspired' AI solutions that minimize the need for large amounts of labeled data, allowing for faster learning and more intelligent AI that adapts to changing real-life conditions. Mindtrace's flagship technology, Brain-Sense, enables enterprises to improve operational efficiencies and generate new revenue opportunities through product and service differentiation.
The company's AI Brains are designed for continuous learning, consolidating new use cases and sharing knowledge with other AI brains to create scalable digital intelligence. Mindtrace offers three main AI Brains: C-Brain for classification, D-Brain for detection, and A-Brain for analytics. These AI Brains support various applications, including precision defect detection, vegetation management, and distributed asset inspection.
Mindtrace's platform provides a "brains-as-a-service" solution, allowing enterprises to augment human inspection efficiency with vision-based AI trained on specific use cases. The company claims its technology can achieve high levels of accuracy with 95% less training data compared to traditional methods. Mindtrace's solutions can be deployed in the cloud, on-site, and on edge devices, offering flexibility to its clients.
In the manufacturing sector, Mindtrace's AI is used for defect detection in finished components, promising to boost accuracy and throughput. For utilities and infrastructure management, the company offers solutions for vegetation management, building asset management, and carbon management. These applications help in detecting potential encroachments, classifying LiDAR data, and streamlining maintenance operations.

MemComputing, founded in San Diego, has developed a novel computing technology aimed at solving complex optimization problems across various industries. The company's proprietary MemCPU Platform combines processing and memory to deliver high-performance computing capabilities for applications in optimization, Big Data analytics, and machine learning. MemComputing's approach is based on a physics-inspired computing paradigm that utilizes non-quantum dynamical systems with memory to process information.
The technology behind MemComputing was invented by Fabio Lorenzo Traversa and Massimiliano (Max) Di Ventra, who sought to design a computer from a physics perspective. Their innovation led to the creation of digital memcomputing machines (DMMs), which are designed to solve combinatorial optimization problems efficiently. DMMs can be realized through electrical circuits or simulated on traditional computers.
MemComputing's solutions have demonstrated significant advantages in solving hard problems. For instance, the company reported finding feasible solutions within minutes for a problem from the MIPLIB 2010 library whose feasibility had remained unknown for eight years. In another case, MemComputing's technology solved a problem in 1.5 hours that would have taken the world's fastest supercomputers significantly longer to solve.
The company's first product, the MemCPU Extreme Performance Computing (XPC) SaaS, is being used by companies in the Global 2000 to address large-scale optimization challenges. MemComputing's approach has shown promising results in various applications, including prime factorization, Boolean satisfiability problems, and restricted Boltzmann machine training.

MemComputing

MemryX Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company that specializes in designing edge AI processing solutions. Founded in 2019, the company focuses on accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) processing for edge devices through its proprietary compute-at-memory technology and dataflow architecture. MemryX's flagship product, the MX3 AI Accelerator, is designed to be an efficient and easy-to-use solution for edge AI applications. The MX3 can be integrated into various edge computing systems, offering scalable AI capabilities for industries such as automotive, robotics, IoT, smart vision systems, and edge computing.
The MX3 AI Accelerator features MemryX Compute Engines (MCE) that are tightly coupled with at-memory computing, creating a native dataflow architecture that utilizes up to 70% of the chip with just one click. This design allows developers to compile any trained AI model with a single click, achieving optimized model performance with high utilization (>50%) and full accuracy within minutes. The MX3 supports multiple AI frameworks, including TensorFlow, TensorFlow Lite, ONNX, PyTorch, and Keras, and can run hundreds of unaltered AI models efficiently.
In terms of performance, the MX3 offers more than five TFLOPs of computing power while consuming approximately one watt of power. It supports BFloat16 activations and can handle weights of 4, 8, and 16 bits. The chip can store about 10 million parameters on-die and interfaces with host systems through PCIe Gen 3 I/O and/or USB 2.0/3.x. MemryX offers the MX3 in various form factors, including bare die, single-die package, and modules (mini PCIe or M.2) with one or more MX3 chips.
As of December 2023, MemryX announced the availability of production-level silicon for its MX3 AI Accelerator, with volume production expected to start in 2023. The company has showcased various demonstrations of the MX3's capabilities, including multi-stream AI-enabled video management systems, AI-powered PCs, threat and weapons detection for public spaces, and smart city traffic management solutions.
Key customers and partnerships
MemryX has formed partnerships with several companies to showcase and integrate its AI acceleration technology. In February 2023, MemryX announced a partnership with Edge Impulse, an AI-algorithm software provider, to streamline the development, testing, and deployment of AI models on MemryX's AI accelerator chips. This collaboration aims to simplify the process of creating and implementing AI solutions for edge devices.
The company has also worked with Cachengo to develop an intelligent edge platform for real-time threat detection in public spaces. Additionally, MemryX has partnered with Fracctal to demonstrate smart city traffic management capabilities powered by the MX3 AI Accelerator.

MemryX

Nepes Corporation is a South Korean company specializing in Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) services. The company provides a comprehensive range of semiconductor packaging design and manufacturing services to global electronics industry clients. Nepes offers various packaging solutions, including wafer level packaging, fan-out wafer level packages, and panel level packaging. In 2020, Nepes acquired factory assets from Deca Technologies, establishing itself as a key player in advanced packaging technologies. The company has implemented Deca's M-Series fan-out technology and Adaptive Patterning real-time EDA ecosystem, enabling it to build the industry's first 600mm large panel M-Series factory in South Korea.
Nepes has expanded its IC packaging capabilities to address the challenges of developing advanced 3D IC packages. The company leverages a range of industry-leading solutions from Siemens EDA, including the Calibre nmPlatform tool, HyperLynx software for electrical rule checking, Calibre 3DSTACK software, Xpedition Substrate Integrator software, and Xpedition Package Designer software. These technologies enable Nepes to provide fast and reliable design services, including 2.5D/3D-based chiplet designs for its growing base of global IC customers.
Key customers and partnerships
Nepes has established partnerships with several prominent companies in the semiconductor industry. The company entered into a technology transfer and licensing agreement with Deca Technologies in 2020, enabling it to implement advanced packaging technologies. Nepes also collaborates with SAPEON Korea, providing them with comprehensive semiconductor packaging design and manufacturing services. Additionally, Nepes has extended its relationship with Siemens Digital Industries Software, leveraging their EDA technologies to enhance its packaging design capabilities and serve mutual customers more effectively.

Nepes

Symetrix Corporation specializes in developing technology for the semiconductor industry. The company's innovations find applications across various sectors, including communications, data acquisition, and measurement devices. Symetrix's technology serves as a crucial component in the advancement of semiconductor capabilities, contributing to the evolution of diverse electronic systems. The company's focus on memory technology suggests a significant role in enhancing data storage and processing capabilities within the semiconductor field.

Symetrix

Syntiant is a deep learning chip technology company founded in 2017 and headquartered in Irvine, California. The company specializes in developing ultra-low-power, high-performance deep neural network processors called Neural Decision Processors (NDPs) for edge AI applications. Syntiant's technology combines deep learning with semiconductor design to enable AI functionality in battery-powered devices without relying on cloud connections.
Syntiant's NDPs are designed to execute deep neural networks natively on various topologies, including Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs), and fully connected networks. The company's chips typically offer 100x efficiency improvement and a 10x increase in throughput compared to traditional low-power microcontroller-based solutions. This allows for larger networks at significantly lower power consumption, extending battery life and reducing infrastructure costs.
The company's product lineup includes the NDP100, NDP101, NDP200, and NDP115 processors. The NDP200, built on the Syntiant Core 2 architecture, provides 25 times the tensor throughput of the Syntiant Core 1 found in the NDP100. The latest NDP115, introduced at CES 2023, is designed for ultra-power and size-constrained applications, capable of running speech inferences at 280 microwatts.
Syntiant has achieved significant milestones in its short history. By January 2021, the company had shipped over 10 million of its NDP100 and NDP101 processors. This number increased to more than 20 million processors shipped by March 2022. As of May 2023, Syntiant has expanded its offerings to include hardware-agnostic deep learning computer vision models that can be deployed on various platforms, including the Renesas RZ/V2L microprocessor.
Key customers and partnerships
Syntiant's technology has found applications across various industries and devices. The company's Neural Decision Processors are being used in earbuds, wearables, smartphones, smart speakers, laptops, vehicles, and other IoT consumer and industrial use cases.
Syntiant has established partnerships with several prominent companies in the tech industry. In July 2021, Syntiant announced a collaboration with Renesas Electronics Corporation for a voice-controlled multimodal solution combining Renesas' RZ/V Series MPUs and Syntiant's NDP120 Neural Decision Processor. This partnership aims to enable low-power contactless operation for image processing in vision AI-based IoT and edge systems.
The company has also worked with Infineon Technologies, signing a smart microphone reference design agreement in 2018. This collaboration aimed to complement Syntiant's NDPs with Infineon's high-performance microphone technology.

Syntiant

Develop neural network hardware, including chipsets and circuits

Software companies that offer tools that can be used to develop neuromorphic AI algorithms and solutions

Develop software solutions to can be used to design neural networking tools, or offer neural networking solutions directly to users

Software companies that apply neuromorphic computing for visual AI tools and applications

Companies that develop and offer solutions that incorporate Neuromorphic-based AI technology

AI/ML enables neuromorphic computing to be applied to artificial neural networks and provide functional outcomes

Mindtrace

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