Ahead of the curve technology and science innovation in Cambridge brought a foreign investment boom for the city and the wider East of England region in 2007, EY reports.

The emerging global profile of digital enterprise helped Cambridge double the number of overseas investments in the UK cluster from seven to 14. The same digital dividend helped the East of England as a whole attract a record 59 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects last year – a 48 per cent increase on 2016.

Digital was the top sector for FDI in the East of England in 2017 – overtaking business services. The number of digital projects quintupled from three recorded projects in 2016 to 15 in 2017. Digital projects represented a quarter of all inward investment locating into the East of England in 2017.

EY says maximising the digital expertise abounding in the uK could help steam aside of investments leaking from Britain to Europe because of Brexit.

The sectors with the second and third highest number of projects locating in the region were pharmaceuticals and agri-food. Each recorded four projects in 2016 – and in 2017 pharmaceuticals increased by 125 per cent to nine projects; agri-food by 33 per cent to six projects.

The wholesale, retail and distribution sector provided two of the largest investments – both from Germany – in Peterborough and Bedford, creating 900 jobs in total.

Nick Gomer, managing partner at EY in the East, said: “These figures are great news for the East – not only has Cambridge doubled the number of FDI projects, but the East region has attracted 48 per cent more investment than in 2016. 

“Furthermore, while Peterborough and Bedford did not make the top 20 ranking in terms of volume of investment deals, they too have seen sizeable and significant investment, winning projects that have resulted in hundreds of jobs for the local area.

“The fact that 25 per cent of investments came from the digital sector does not surprise me, given it is a particular strength for the East. The region’s outstanding performance in 2017 gives us solid foundations as we continue to work towards rebalancing the UK economy; however, it remains crucial that we find ways to share the benefits of FDI more evenly across the country.”

The UK remains the number one destination for FDI in Europe, ahead of Germany and France, despite a decline in sentiment from foreign investors towards the UK as a place to invest. The UK attracted 1,205 FDI projects in 2017, a six per cent increase compared to 2016 (1,138).

Investors expressed clear concerns surrounding Brexit, which contributed to the UK’s waning attractiveness and a decline in FDI projects in certain sectors, including, financial services, business services and logistics. A 22 per cent increase in digital investments into the UK helped to cushion the hit and push the UK into growth territory.

According to the report, there was a marked increase in UK outbound investment by 35 per cent in 2017 to a new high. 110 of those investments went into Germany and 79 to France, as UK businesses appear to be accelerating their activity to position themselves for a post Brexit environment.

Gomer said: “The UK’s FDI performance shows an economy in transition, influenced by Brexit and the force of technological change. In 2017 a swell of digital projects flowed into Europe, changing the shape of FDI and bringing new dynamic businesses to the continent. Digital projects increased by 33 per cent across Europe – three times the rate of overall market growth – and quadrupled in the East, but only increased by 22 per cent across the UK as a whole.

“At a time when investor sentiment towards the UK as an attractive destination is weakening, opportunity arises in the shape of digital. An urgent digital drive is needed with a renewed focus on digital skills, infrastructure, and investment in research and development will help to shape the UK as an attractive environment, to maintain its competitiveness in a post-Brexit world.”

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Nick Gomer

Investors from Europe and Asia have contributed to a $15 million funding round for Cambridge artificial intelligence startup Fetch.AI.

A further, follow-up funding round would appear to be on the cards as Fetch.AI accelerates development of what it bills as the world’s first smart ledger.

Prominent unspecified technology investment houses participated in the round and are expected to follow through.

Fetch.AI, whose team includes original pioneers of DeepMind (sold to Google for some $500m) is harnessing machine learning and blockchain development capability to build a massive ‘decentralised digital world.’

The fresh $15m will further technical development, corporate partnerships and academic relationships. Original seed funding was provided by leading Web 3.0 venture capital firm Outlier Ventures.

Fetch.AI’s decentralised digital world provides a home for Autonomous Economic Agents (AEAs) able to conduct useful economic work on behalf of humans or machines.

Humayun Sheikh, CEO and co-founder of Fetch.AI said: “We are delighted to have raised $15m. This allows us to bring in more top talent focused on areas like machine learning, artificial intelligence and decentralised computing. 

“It gives us the resource to take Fetch to the next level and accelerates our already rapid progress on all aspects of our innovative convergence of so many exciting technologies.”

Transport is one of many key verticals being targeted by Fetch.AI. The potential for AEAs to work together to simplify highly complex journeys by autonomously coordinating is significant.

To that end, Fetch.AI recently joined MOBI, a consortium of major automotive manufacturers including BMW, Ford, GM and Renault that’s dedicated to establishing blockchain standards in areas such as vehicle identification and autonomous vehicle management. 

The Fetch.AI system is underpinned by the world’s first smart ledger that scales to millions of transactions per second at near zero cost, using a DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) structure. 

The introduction of transaction lanes combined with advanced machine learning algorithms enable the ledger to probabilistically determine the validity of a transaction – dramatically improving performance.

From its base at St John’s Innovation Centre, Fetch.AI is building a technical team and a network of corporate and academic partnerships. The next major milestone for the project is the public release of its testnet, which is expected later in 2018.

Image courtesy: Jonathan Rhodes

Let my pain be a lesson to all. I recently had to join the queue outside the Passport Office when 48 hours before my family and I were due to depart on our break I discovered that there was only five months and 23 days left on my daughter’s passport writes May Ozga, associate with Greenwoods GRM LLP.

She needed at least six clear months of validity in her passport to enter the country of our destination.

Sadly, despite my pleas, the Passport Office was unable to assist on this occasion as passports for children under the age of 16 take at least one week to be processed. Our household was not a happy place when it was confirmed that we could not go on our break!

The same process applies to the service of break notices in commercial leases. All too often, commercial tenants forget to pay strict heed to the notice period in their leases before they exercise their break rights.

Leases often stipulate that a tenant must give no less than six months written notice to the landlord of its intention to break the lease on a specific date.  

It is crucial that a tenant adheres to the notice periods in their break clause and any other break conditions, in order to validly and successfully exercise its break right. 

If the lease specifies that no less than 6 months’ notice must be given, the tenant must give at least this and not for example, 5 months 23 days. This is important because a landlord is entitled to say that as the break notice has not been exercised correctly, and as the lease has not ended on the break date it therefore continues. The tenant ends up continuing to pay for a lease it no longer wants and having to continue to observe the covenants under its lease.

The tenant’s only way out of the unwanted lease will be to either negotiate a surrender of the lease, or if the lease permits assignments, the tenant could find a willing and acceptable assignee.

The tenant will need to bear in mind that the landlord will have the upper hand in those circumstances. The landlord will be aware that the tenant failed to exercise its break right validly and is desperate to go. The tenant may end up having to pay a landlord a hefty surrender premium if the landlord agrees to accept a surrender of the lease. 

It is crucial that tenants keep track of and diarise their break dates, diarise ample time in advance of their break date to obtain any legal advice, serve their break notices in good time and comply with any break conditions. 

If a tenant serves its break notice well in advance it would also hopefully mean that if there is any defect in the notice, the tenant might still have sufficient time to re-serve it. 

Don’t lose your break!  If in doubt seek legal advice well in advance of any plans to vacate! 

greenwoodsgrm.co.uk

Microbiotica in Cambridge UK is set to receive up to $534 million in upfront and milestone payments from a multi-year deal with Roche Group company Genentech.

Microbiotica is a leading player in microbiome-based therapeutics and spun out of the Wellcome Sanger Institute.

The collaboration with Genentech is designed to discover, develop and commercialise biomarkers, targets and medicines for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Microbiotica will utilise its precision metagenomics microbiome platform to analyse patient samples from clinical trials of Genentech’s investigational IBD medicines to identify microbiome biomarker signatures of drug response, novel IBD drug targets and live bacterial therapeutic products.

Microbiotica will receive an undisclosed upfront payment and is eligible to receive research, development and commercialisation milestone payments up to $534m based on achievement of certain predetermined milestones.

In addition, Microbiotica is eligible to receive royalties on sales of certain products resulting from the collaboration. Genentech also has an option to license assets that Microbiotica develops as a result of the research collaboration.

Microbiotica was formed 18 months ago with funding from Cambridge Innovation Capital and IP Group to commercialise ground-breaking microbiome science at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, from the laboratory of Dr Trevor Lawley, CSO of Microbiotica.

The Microbiotica platform comprises the world’s leading microbiome Culture Collection and linked Reference Genome Database that enable unprecedented precision of gut bacterial identification at clinical trial scale.

The company is adding to this at a very rapid rate through its industrial culturing and sequencing pipeline, providing the best available representation of clinical trial samples for strain-level identification of bacteria.

The complex datasets that arise from such studies are analysed using AI techniques to discern microbiome signatures linked to phenotype. The availability of the physical Culture Collection enables biological evaluation of bacteria in proprietary translational models including humanised microbiome mouse models.

Dr Mike Romanos, CEO of Microbiotica, said: “This collaboration brings together a world-class pipeline of investigational IBD medicines from Genentech with the world-class microbiome capability of Microbiotica. “We are excited by the opportunity to work with Genentech scientists in order to bring precision metagenomics into the clinical arena for the first time, enabling us to develop biomarkers and medicines for the benefit of patients.

“This collaboration reflects Microbiotica’s strategy of utilising its platform for medicines and biomarker discovery while simultaneously expanding platform capabilities. Whilst Genentech will retain rights to proprietary biomarkers, targets and medicines, the collaboration will enable Microbiotica to continue to rapidly expand its already leading Reference Genome Database and Culture Collection, further strengthening its value across all therapeutic areas.”

Microbiotica is a portfolio company of Cambridge Innovation Capital whose operating partner Dr Robert Tansley said: “From our first meeting with the Microbiotica team we became aware of the tremendous potential in its technology and knowledge base.

“This collaboration with Genentech, a world-leading biotechnology company, in just one of the many areas of application of the microbiome provides an excellent endorsement of Microbiotica’s technology and underlines CIC’s initial and continual rationale for supporting this business.”

Lab21 Products in Cambridge has launched a new diagnostic for glandular fever. Dual-listed parent company Novacyt says it is the first in a series of new product launches in infectious diseases planned for 2018.

Lab21 is the protein diagnostics division of UK and Paris-listed Novacyt and glandular fever (infectious mononucleosis, or IM) is a prime market for the technology.

The company’s solution – PathFlow™ Mononucleosis – is described by the business as a qualitative lateral flow immunoassay for the detection of IM antibodies in the blood.

IM is frequently misdiagnosed as a bacterial infection, streptococcal pharyngitis, due to common clinical presentation of the diseases at onset.

In reality, IM is caused by the Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) and, as a virus, IM does not respond to antibiotic treatment.

Lab21 claims PathFlow™ Mononucleosis provides a rapid and effective differential diagnosis to patients with IM over streptococcal pharyngitis. It is also said to facilitate antibiotic stewardship by ensuring antibiotics are not offered to patients owing to a misdiagnosis and helping to address the global issue of antibiotic resistance.

IM is a global disease affecting both sexes equally, which is typically observed in 60-100 per 100,000 people. EBV antibodies are detected in 50 per cent of children by five years of age.

Although the market for IM testing is relatively small it is an important niche infectious disease market and it is expected that PathFow™ will give clinicians a quick and reliable product to help manage their patients.

The launch of PathFlow™ Mononucleosis is the first product in a series of lateral flow immunoassays that will form part of Novacyt’s growing catalogue of rapid infectious disease diagnostics and aid Lab21’s position as a leader in microbial diagnostic kits. Branded under the name PathFlow™, these products will utilise rapid lateral flow technology, with a focus on patient pathways and improving clinical outcomes.

Lab21 plans to launch a number of new products for common winter associated diseases in time for the winter peak in 2018.

Graham Mullis, group CEO of Novacyt, said: “Lab21 Products has significant experience of developing rapid and reliable diagnostic solutions for infectious diseases.

“The launch of PathFlow™ Mononucleosis, the first product in the PathFlow™ product family, demonstrates our continued commitment to the R & D-led growth of our overall growth strategy.

“This exciting new range of diagnostic test kits enhances our new product pipeline, with a number of additional launches expected during 2018, and strengthens our position in the rapidly growing infectious disease market.”

Lab21 is based in Winship Road, Milton in the growing north Cambridge business district.

Cambridge medical devices pioneer CMR Surgical, which is commercialising a new robotics arm to revolutionise keyhole surgery, has made history with a stunning $100 million (£74m) Series B fundraising.

It is the largest ever private financing of a medical devices company in Europe. The $100m comes from new investor the Zhejiang Silk Road Fund and existing investors Escala Capital Investments, LGT, Cambridge Innovation Capital and Watrium.

CEO Martin Frost told Business Weekly the round was gamechanging on several fronts – not least because it “gives us a window on China, the world’s fastest growing market in this sector.”

Frost said the the robot-assisted minimal access surgery market globally was estimated to reach $20 billion by 2025, presenting the company with “a massive opportunity.” He felt the fundraising and the potential CMR Surgical had created going forward was also a notable landmark for the Cambridge technology cluster, creating a long-awaited champion for the medical devices market.

“We believe the company is a real jewel in the crown of Cambridge and this country, through the progress we have made in such a relatively short space of time and the stunning potential for the business.

“We are taking on perceived world giants with genuine confidence and a fabulous product, which is far more versatile for surgeons, patients and hospitals than anything on the market or even on the horizon.”

Frost said CMR Surgical would use the money to prepare its Versius® system for planned commercialisation. Activities will include the completion of validation studies for regulatory approval processes in both Europe and the US, international expansion, and commercial scale-up in response to considerable industry interest in adoption of this new product.

Inspired by the human arm, the Versius system’s compact size and dexterity means the system can be used across a wide range of minimal access procedures whilst retaining its portability. These are key attributes in delivering a system that can fit easily into hospital workflows, drive up utilisation and in turn help surgical robotics reach its full market potential for the benefits of patients around the world. The company is conducting preclinical trials, demonstrating the ability of its Versius system to perform upper gastrointestinal, gynaecological, colorectal and renal surgery.

Frost said that Versius represents a new paradigm in surgical experience for the industry, surgeons and patients. He said: “CMR Surgical’s rapid growth has given us the opportunity to develop a life-changing solution which we expect to change the take-up of minimal access surgery worldwide.“With these latest funds, we intend to start commercialising Versius in Europe, the USA and more broadly. The overwhelming financial backing from our existing and new investors, with strong participation from management and employees, demonstrates their enthusiasm and support for CMR Surgical’s vision in making minimal access surgery available to all.”

CMR Surgical has more than doubled in size in the past year. The company, incorporated four and a half years ago, now employs over 200 people and is developing a new 42,000 sq ft global headquarters on the outskirts of Cambridge to bring the talent from multiple hubs into one innovation hothouse.

CMR Surgical has played a canny game in the research & development build-up, placing prototype devices literally in the hands of surgeons around the world whose feedback has spurred refinements but been overwhelmingly positive: “This is what we have been waiting for,” has been the consensus.

The highly compact and portable nature of the device, which Business Weekly has seen, will also prove a Godsend for hospitals where the current offerings are cumbersome and space-consuming.

“Versius will transform surgery for good and this is what we have always been all about,” Frost told me. “There is a key difference between ambition and arrogance and we have kept close to the professionals during the early development process while keeping our feet on the ground. We are competing against global giants in this field so certainly cannot afford to be naive. We think we have struck a sensible balance and have a product that can do what the da Vinci surgical system can do but in a much more cost-effective way.

“Versius will also substantially improve the flow of operations through the operating theatre; it will improve surgeons’ workflow to allow them to carry out more operations but save them time, energy and effort in the process. For a whole raft of reasons we are so proud that we will be part of a vastly improved ecosystem without hospitals and clinics where keyhole surgery is performed.”

Frost says the portable nature and affordability of Versius compared to its rivals will help slash costs in the under-pressure NHS in the UK and in the US healthcare system – and also permit procedures to be carried out in many more territories around the globe, notably in less developed countries.

Encouragingly for the five business founders, the growing workforce and the surgeons and patients at the sharp end of the technology, Frost says there is plenty of headroom for ongoing innovation.

“Our first generation product is excellent but it most certainly won’t be the last,” he advises.

Investors from Shanghai have joined a completed $5.5 million Series A round for AI business Cambridge Touch Technologies which aims to build on hard-won attraction in Asia.

CTT is developing AI-driven, 3D multi-touch sensing technologies for smart devices. Existing investors – Parkwalk Advisors, Cambridge Enterprise and Amadeus Capital Partners – participated in the round and were joined by new investors China Materialia of Shanghai and Downing Ventures of London.

Ascendant Corporate Finance provided advice to CTT on the fund raising.

The Cambridge UK company’s technology uses what is regarded as the world’s simplest architecture to deliver an all-screen, multi-finger 3D touch solution that can scale to all device sizes at a fraction of the cost of existing approaches.

CTT technology sits above or on the display due to its high transparency, not underneath as with current opaque approaches. It is fully compatible with OLED and LCD conventional or bezel-less ‘infinity’ screens, including flat, curved and newly emerging foldable and flexible devices.

Due to sophisticated software algorithms and artificial intelligence, CTT’s next-generation solution is regarded by the investors as the world’s simplest 3D Touch architecture, employing just a single, piezoelectric based sensor for combined force and capacitive location sensing. First-generation competitor solutions require separate sensors and are said to be more complex to manufacture.

CTT was spun out of the University of Cambridge in 2011 to commercialise next-generation 3D multi-touch technology for smart devices such as smartphones, tablets, automotive and industrial applications. 3D Touch is an enhanced user interface which is now being deployed by all leading mobile and smart device makers.

CTT says it has attracted strong market interest and is engaged with leading OEMs, touch and display panel manufacturers, touch controller IC makers and auto component suppliers for mass adoption of its technology in the near future.

CEO Corbin Church said: “We’re delighted to welcome China Materialia and Downing Ventures, both highly-respected funds, who join our existing investors in backing the rapid growth of the business.

“In particular, we are pleased that the progress we have made in key elements of the technology, and with major customers in Asia, has allowed us to attract investment from that region, which is highly strategic for our commercialisation plans and roll-out.

“The company has a number of opportunities to exploit with its technology, IP and first-class team, and this new funding will allow us to accelerate business, product and market development over the next 18 months. We look forward to continuing to work with our customers and partners towards mass production, which is expected in the near future.”

Dr Patrick Berbon, managing partner of China Materialia, added: “We are excited to invest in CTT and join its board. We are attracted by the simplicity and elegance of CTT’s solution for 3D Touch sensors in smart devices.

“We feel that CTT’s AI-based signal processing algorithms and specialised Piezoelectric Force Films, could enable a simple low-cost sensor architecture that delivers superior functionality, and scales to all device sizes, shapes and, flexible and foldable forms, and open up exciting new applications on these devices.”

Cyber defence technology specialist Darktrace has become the Cambridge UK cluster’s 16th billion dollar company and its fastest to achieve unicorn status.
 
It is the youngest surviving unicorn, having taken the record of telecoms pioneer Ionica which went bust in spectacular fashion after a mercurial rise and fall.

Darktrace is now valued at $1.25bn just five years after launch on June 10, 2013.

This follows an investment in the business by Vitruvian Partners and decisions by two early backers to unload some of their shares; combining to push Darktrace to the $1.25bn landmark.

The business has been backed from Day One by Cambridge technology investor Mike Lynch’s Invoke Capital venture, which also has its roots in the cluster.

Turnover rose 80 per cent in the last year recorded and has continued to hire fast and big on both sides of the Atlantic under the astute leadership of Nicole Eagan in the US and Poppy Gustafsson in the UK and EMEA.

Business Weekly predicted Darktrace’s surge to unicorn status a year ago after it won our Business of the Year Award.

It was only 12 months ago that the fertile Cambridge tech cluster gave birth to its 15th billion dollar business – virtual reality sensation Improbable – following a $500m investment round led by ARM’s new Japanese owner SoftBank.

Improbable had just been named by Cambridge Computer Laboratory svengali Andy Hopper as the Lab Ring’s company of the year; it was already in the Lab’s 257-strong Hall of Fame.

The business was founded by Cambridge computer science alumni Herman Narula (CEO) and Rob Whitehead (CTO) in 2012.

Its SpatialOS operating system is transforming capabilities across sectors as diverse as game development, smart city design, including transport networks, telecoms and monitoring of autonomous vehicles.

The platform enables third parties such as games developers and civil engineers and architects to build virtual worlds on a massive scale.

As Business Weekly has also recently flagged up, games developer Frontier Developments is a whisker away from becoming the17th $Bn business spawned in Cambridge from home-rooted IP.
 

Cyber defence technology specialist Darktrace has become the Cambridge UK cluster’s 16th billion dollar company and its fastest to achieve unicorn status.
 
It is the youngest surviving unicorn, having taken the record of telecoms pioneer Ionica which went bust in spectacular fashion after a mercurial rise and fall.

Darktrace is now valued at $1.25bn just five years after launch on June 10, 2013.

This follows an investment in the business by Vitruvian Partners and decisions by two early backers to unload some of their shares; combining to push Darktrace to the $1.25bn landmark.

The business has been backed from Day One by Cambridge technology investor Mike Lynch’s Invoke Capital venture, which also has its roots in the cluster.

Turnover rose 80 per cent in the last year recorded and has continued to hire fast and big on both sides of the Atlantic under the astute leadership of Nicole Eagan in the US and Poppy Gustafsson in the UK and EMEA.

Business Weekly predicted Darktrace’s surge to unicorn status a year ago after it won our Business of the Year Award.

It was only 12 months ago that the fertile Cambridge tech cluster gave birth to its 15th billion dollar business – virtual reality sensation Improbable – following a $500m investment round led by ARM’s new Japanese owner SoftBank.

Improbable had just been named by Cambridge Computer Laboratory svengali Andy Hopper as the Lab Ring’s company of the year; it was already in the Lab’s 257-strong Hall of Fame.

The business was founded by Cambridge computer science alumni Herman Narula (CEO) and Rob Whitehead (CTO) in 2012.

Its SpatialOS operating system is transforming capabilities across sectors as diverse as game development, smart city design, including transport networks, telecoms and monitoring of autonomous vehicles.

The platform enables third parties such as games developers and civil engineers and architects to build virtual worlds on a massive scale.

As Business Weekly has also recently flagged up, games developer Frontier Developments is a whisker away from becoming the17th $Bn business spawned in Cambridge from home-rooted IP.
 

Cyber defence technology specialist Darktrace has become the Cambridge UK cluster’s 16th billion dollar company and its fastest to achieve unicorn status.
 
It is the youngest surviving unicorn, having taken the record of telecoms pioneer Ionica which went bust in spectacular fashion after a mercurial rise and fall.

Darktrace is now valued at $1.25bn just five years after launch on June 10, 2013.

This follows an investment in the business by Vitruvian Partners and decisions by two early backers to unload some of their shares; combining to push Darktrace to the $1.25bn landmark.

The business has been backed from Day One by Cambridge technology investor Mike Lynch’s Invoke Capital venture, which also has its roots in the cluster.

Turnover rose 80 per cent in the last year recorded and has continued to hire fast and big on both sides of the Atlantic under the astute leadership of Nicole Eagan in the US and Poppy Gustafsson in the UK and EMEA.

Business Weekly predicted Darktrace’s surge to unicorn status a year ago after it won our Business of the Year Award.

It was only 12 months ago that the fertile Cambridge tech cluster gave birth to its 15th billion dollar business – virtual reality sensation Improbable – following a $500m investment round led by ARM’s new Japanese owner SoftBank.

Improbable had just been named by Cambridge Computer Laboratory svengali Andy Hopper as the Lab Ring’s company of the year; it was already in the Lab’s 257-strong Hall of Fame.

The business was founded by Cambridge computer science alumni Herman Narula (CEO) and Rob Whitehead (CTO) in 2012.

Its SpatialOS operating system is transforming capabilities across sectors as diverse as game development, smart city design, including transport networks, telecoms and monitoring of autonomous vehicles.

The platform enables third parties such as games developers and civil engineers and architects to build virtual worlds on a massive scale.

As Business Weekly has also recently flagged up, games developer Frontier Developments is a whisker away from becoming the17th $Bn business spawned in Cambridge from home-rooted IP.