US tech giant NVIDIA piled on the sugar and honey with jam on the side as it reeled off the positives of its $40 billion acquisition of Cambridge silicon superhero Arm. Rather than swallowing hype about the deal hitting the sweet spot, critics triggered an alert for wasps and a potentially deadly sting.

Arm’s Japanese parent SoftBank has agreed terms for the deal and emphasised an upside that looks fabulous for Cambridge and the UK on the face of it:-

• A new and world-leading Artificial Intelligence megahub for Cambridge
• A $1.5bn equity windfall for Arm employees, potentially triggering a fresh wave of tech startups funded by newly created Arm millionaires
• A pledge to keep the superchip architect’s HQ in Cambridge and not move it to California
• Promises to grow headcount rather than cut jobs here and to physically grow Arm’s Cambridge mothership.
• The decision to exclude Arm’s potentially world-beating IoT Services Group from the acquisition.

Too good to be true? Cambridge entrepreneur Hermann Hauser thinks so and has been backed by scores of executives in an open letter to Boris Johnson warning the PM to intervene.

The UK government has promised to inspect the terms of the deal; the proposed transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of regulatory approvals for the UK, China, the EU and the US. 

Completion of the transaction is expected to take place in approximately 18 months. That leaves room for a riptide of water to flow under a number of global bridges. Independent observers are pointing out that this could either prove the greatest thing that has ever happened to Cambridge technology or turn into a bloodbath at a time when the UK government is struggling to strike trade deals with world powers.

NVIDIA says it will create the world’s greatest AI research superhub in the UK’s leading technology cluster. It will be based at Arm’s existing Cambridge HQ building, which has been significantly extended in the last couple of years.

The Artificial Intelligence nervecentre will embrace a startup accelerator, international research collaborations, training and Fellowships. It will host an Arm-based supercomputer; the facility will serve as a broad-based hub for collaboration by AI researchers, scientists and startups across the UK and internationally.

NVIDIA says: “We are excited to be creating a world-class AI laboratory in Cambridge at the Arm headquarters: a Hadron collider or Hubble telescope, if you like, for artificial intelligence. 

“NVIDIA is the leader in AI computing while Arm is present across a vast ecosystem of edge devices, with more than 180 billion units shipped. With this newly announced combination, we are creating the leading computing company for the age of AI.”

Arm CEO Simon Segars was upbeat about the proposed deal, saying: “Arm and NVIDIA share a vision and passion that ubiquitous, energy-efficient computing will help address the world’s most pressing issues from climate change to healthcare, from agriculture to education.”

“Delivering on this vision requires new approaches to hardware and software and a long-term commitment to research and development. By bringing together the technical strengths of our two companies we can accelerate our progress and create new solutions that will enable a global ecosystem of innovators. My management team and I are excited to be joining NVIDIA so we can write this next chapter together.”

Arm co-founder Hermann Hauser, representing a global cohort of complainants, doesn’t agree. He tells the PM:  “We are concerned about the impact on jobs in Cambridge, Manchester, Belfast, Glasgow, Sheffield and Warwick where thousands of Arm employees work.

“The sale of Arm to Nvidia will destroy the very basis of Arm’s business model which is to be the Switzerland of the semiconductor industry dealing in an even-handed way with its over 500 licensees. Most of them are Nvidia’s competitors. Among them are many UK companies. Assurances to the contrary should be legally binding.

“Most importantly for the long term, it is an issue of national economic sovereignty: Arm is the only remaining UK technology company with a dominant position in mobile phone microprocessors. It has a market share of over 95 per cent. 

“The UK has suffered from American technology dominance by companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Apple and others. As the American president has weaponised technology dominance in his trade war with China, the UK will become collateral damage unless it has its own trade weapons to bargain with.

“Arm powers the smartphones of Apple, Samsung, Sony, Huawei and practically every other brand in the world and therefore can exert influence on all of them.

“A sale to Nvidia will mean that Arm becomes subject to the US OFAC regulations. There are hundreds of companies in the UK electronics industry employing tens of thousands of people who use Arm in their products. Many of them export to major global markets including China. They will all have to comply with the US OFAC regulations.

“This puts Britain in the invidious position that the decision about who Arm is allowed to sell to will be made in the White House and not in Downing Street. Surrendering UK’s most powerful trade weapon to the US is making Britain a US vassal state.”

Dr Hauser demands legally binding job guarantees for all Arm employees in the UK and a legally binding agreement that NVIDIA must not gain any preferential treatment over other Arm licensees.

He says the natural alternative to an Arm sale to NVIDIA is to take Arm public on the London Stock Exchange and make it a British owned company again with a Golden Share for national economic security. 

And he lays it on the line to Boris Johnson: “As you have spent £500m to help OneWeb out of Chapter 11, which arguably is not as important to Britain as Arm, you could spend £1-2bn as the anchor investor for an IPO on the London Stock Exchange and get a Golden Share for it so that this problem cannot happen again.

“If you do not make Arm a British owned company again with a Golden Share for national economic security, history will remember you as the person who, when the chips are down, failed to act in the national interest.”

The private equity industry has been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, in common with most other industries, writes Mark Pinder of Birketts LLP. But how insulated is it? And what changes in practice have we seen?

In addition to COVID-19, this all has to be set against the background created by both Brexit and the tremendous political uncertainty created by the 2020 US presidential election. We live in interesting times. 

It is arguable though that, whilst banks have found themselves increasingly tied up in regulation since the financial crisis of 2007/8 and the returns of public markets have fallen when compared with the PE market generally over the last 10 years, the PE market today is in prime position to stand tall and grow in its attractiveness for investors. 

Over recent months, however, there has unquestionably been a slowdown in deal activity and, partly as a consequence, focus has switched towards existing investment portfolio management. A case of seeing if more value can be squeezed from existing investments rather than seeking new, more risky ones. 

There is also another pressure point for those PE houses which raised funds shortly after the 2007/8 financial crisis: the private-asset managers managing the funds (the general partners or GPs) are finding themselves under increasing pressure to crystallise investments and share the resultant fruits with their limited partners (the suppliers of capital) as these funds gradually mature. 

Changes

So what changes in behaviour have we been seeing in recent times? As a result of this more uncertain environment, we are seeing three main changes.

There is increased pre-investment diligence, particularly for investors wanting to assess the likely (but difficult to predict) impact on target businesses being caused by Brexit at the same time now as trying to understand and quantify the long-term implications of the COVID-19 pandemic. Challenging to even the most adept of economic forecasters. 

Of course, every cloud (and all that) means that market uncertainty can and does throw up new opportunities, particularly for cash-strapped businesses. We are also seeing issues surrounding directors’ potential liabilities becoming ever more prevalent. There is growing pressure in the UK and across the rest of Europe on directors and how they operate and make decisions, particularly in relation to bribery and corruption, money laundering, modern slavery, sanctions and tax avoidance and evasion. 

It is quite obvious that directors are being held to a higher standard of responsibility, in some cases even to a criminal level, for acts which previously might have fallen behind the corporate veil. 

This impacts the private equity industry by inevitably resulting in an increased focus on internal compliance processes and procedures – increasing costs and time spent in evaluation. 

We have also seen the debt: equity balance alter over the last 10 years with debt forming a larger part of investments. Lending has been moving away from traditional lending banks to more specialised private-credit firms. 

The industry has seen a growth of closer relationships between the PE houses and these more specialist lending firms as they are more in tune with the PE market they serve. 

This evolution, coupled with the terms of the lending used to back PE deals seeing a shift to more ‘covenant-light’ agreements, has resulted in investee companies being able to withstand bigger falls in performance without triggering penalties from their lenders. 

This ‘elasticity’ has limits though and falls in performance during these difficult but hopefully short-term times has resulted in an increasing willingness by PE houses to ‘cure’ the problem of lenders getting concerned by injecting cash for fresh equity. 

Watching brief

It is going to be very interesting to watch the PE market in coming months – there is undoubtedly a growing pile of cash (or to be more accurate committed but unspent capital, otherwise known as ‘dry powder’) ready to be applied towards new investments.

Whilst some of this is currently going into supporting existing investments, helping them through this trying and quite unusual period, there remains much to be spent on new investments. 

And with prices depressed, we expect to see PE houses start reacting more quickly than trade buyers to these new opportunities. This could be an excellent time to buy.

• You can call Mark Pinder on 01223 643128 or email him at: mark-pinder [at] birketts.co.uk

birketts.co.uk

Last month saw the publication of the Government White Paper ‘Planning for the Future’, writes Colin Brown, Partner, Planning & Development, Carter Jonas Cambridge. Published on 6 August, it set out a package of reforms which represent the most fundamental change in England’s planning system since the 1947 Town & Country Planning Act.

A consultation period now follows, after which primary and secondary legislation will be required for some elements.

The White Paper is meant to address perceived weaknesses in the current planning system and is set against the Government’s pledge to “build, build, build” and “level up” the variations in prosperity between different parts of the country, as well as to increase international competitiveness post-Brexit.

The proposals follow important changes announced in July, including the changes to the Use Class Order, which came into effect on 1 September 2020.

The White Paper sets out proposals across three ‘pillars’ – planning for development; beautiful and sustainable places; and infrastructure and connected places. 

The proposals are extensive and wide-ranging, but perhaps the most fundamental aspect is the shift towards a zoning-style system. This would require local planning authorities (LPAs) to identify land in their Local Plan as falling under one of three categories: Growth, Renewal or Protected.

Growth areas suitable for substantial development – outline approval for development would be automatically secured for forms and types of development specified in the Local Plan. 

In these areas, development would automatically receive outline planning permission for the principle of development. New settlements, urban extensions, and former industrial/urban regeneration sites would be included in this category (areas of flood risk are specifically excluded) and growth clusters around universities are mentioned.

Renewal areas suitable for some development, such as ‘gentle densification’ – This could include infill of residential areas, development in towns and small sites on the edge of villages which are not protected. 

There would be a statutory presumption in favour of development for the uses specified as being suitable in each area. There would be automatic consent for schemes which meet design and other prior approval requirements.

Protected areas where development would be restricted – For example green belts and conservations areas, and where an application for express planning permission would still be required for new development.

For exceptionally large sites such as new towns, the Government wants to explore a Development Consent Order under the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects regime.

In growth and renewal areas, the Local Plan would set out suitable development uses and limitations on height and/or density. It would still be possible for a proposal which is different to the plan to come forward, but this would require a specific planning application.

Also suggested is a potential alternative approach combining growth and renewal areas into one category and a broader alternative of limiting automatic permission in principle to land identified for substantial development. 

Under current arrangements, Local Plans already allocate sites for specific uses, in a not dissimilar way to the first two of the three proposed categories. 

However, the automatic granting of planning permission and ‘permission in principle’ under the proposed system may mean that the ability of local authorities to control development will be much more limited than currently.

Overall, this broad-brush approach to growth, renewal and protected areas makes sense. Uncertainty holds back businesses across sectors, and the development industry is no exception. Creating greater certainty around what is acceptable looks to be a positive step.

However, the shift away from a case-by-case to a rules-based approach, risks creating a more centralised system that is less accountable at a local level (something which only a few years ago the Government was keen to move away from). 

Reducing the democratic process will be challenged if this is seen as a ‘gravy train’ for developers and landowners. Of course, this is an over-simplification as it is a relationship that also involves the consumer, where choice and value for money are as important as quality.

There is also a question mark over how flexible the new system will be in allowing alternative uses if the allocated use does not come forward. This could potentially stifle development.

In cities such as Cambridge, large swathes of central urban areas fall within Conservation Areas and will more than likely fall within the protected category, meaning that new development will require an application for express planning permission, as is the case presently. Will a variety of sub-categories therefore be required to fit different area profiles?

There is also concern that the proposal to grant outline planning permission automatically for sites through the plan-making process could be highly complicated.

The suggested approach is not equivalent to zoning elsewhere in the world and does not mean the end for planning applications. Protected areas will still require ‘normal’ planning applications and some form of reserved matters application will be required in growth and renewal areas where outline permission is assumed on allocated sites. If a developer wants to step outside of the allocation an application could still be submitted.

Above all, however, this approach highlights the primacy of the Local Plan and the intention to make it the centre-stage of the process going forward.

carterjonas.co.uk

US technology power player NVIDIA and Cambridge superchip architect Arm are to create the world’s greatest AI research superhub in the UK’s leading technology cluster.

The move was announced after NVIDIA revealed that it had agreed to acquire Arm from Japanese business SoftBank for $40 billion.

Announced just hours after the acquisition was agreed, it is not yet clear whether the AI centre will create new jobs or be staffed from existing employees from both companies already based in the UK. 

But it WILL be based at Arm’s existing Cambridge HQ building, which has been significantly extended in the last couple of years.

The Artificial Intelligence nervecentre will embrace a startup accelerator, international research collaborations, training and Fellowships.

It will host an Arm-based supercomputer; the facility will serve as a broad-based hub for collaboration by AI researchers, scientists and startups across the UK and internationally.

NVIDIA says: “Artificial intelligence is the most powerful technology force of our time. It is the automation of automation, where software writes software. 

“While AI began in the data centre, it is moving quickly to the edge – to stores, warehouses, hospitals, streets, and airports, where smart sensors connected to AI computers can speed checkouts, direct forklifts, orchestrate traffic, and save power. 

“In time, there will be trillions of these small autonomous computers powered by AI, connected by massively powerful cloud data centres in every corner of the world.

“But in many ways, the field is just getting started. That’s why we are excited to be creating a world-class AI laboratory in Cambridge, at the Arm headquarters: a Hadron collider or Hubble telescope, if you like, for artificial intelligence.”  

NVIDIA says that together with Arm, it is uniquely positioned to launch this effort. “NVIDIA is the leader in AI computing, while Arm is present across a vast ecosystem of edge devices, with more than 180 billion units shipped. With this newly announced combination, we are creating the leading computing company for the age of AI. 

“Arm is an incredible company and it employs some of the greatest engineering minds in the world. But we believe we can make Arm even more incredible and take it to even higher levels. We want to propel it – and the UK – to global AI leadership.

“We will create an open centre of excellence in the area once home to giants like Isaac Newton and Alan Turing, for whom key NVIDIA technologies are named. 

“Here, leading scientists, engineers and researchers from the UK and around the world will come develop their ideas, collaborate and conduct their ground-breaking work in areas like healthcare, life sciences, self-driving cars and other fields. We want the UK to attract the best minds and talent from around the world.”

The Cambridge AI centre will include:-

• An Arm/NVIDIA-based supercomputer: Expected to be one of the most powerful AI supercomputers in the world, this system will combine state-of-the art Arm CPUs, NVIDIA’s most advanced GPU technology, and NVIDIA Mellanox DPUs, along with high-performance computing and AI software from NVIDIA and its many partners. For reference – as Business Weekly recently reported – the world’s fastest supercomputer, Fugaku in Japan, is Arm-based and NVIDIA’s own supercomputer Selene is the seventh most powerful system in the world.
• Research Fellowships and Partnerships: In this centre, NVIDIA will expand research partnerships within the UK with academia and industry to conduct research covering leading-edge work in healthcare, autonomous vehicles, robotics, data science and more. NVIDIA already has successful research partnerships with King’s College and Oxford. 
• AI Training: NVIDIA’s education wing, the Deep Learning Institute, has trained more than 250,000 students on both fundamental and applied AI. 
• NVIDIA will create an institute in Cambridge, and make its curriculum available throughout the UK. This will provide both young people and mid-career workers with new AI skills, creating job opportunities and preparing the next generation of UK developers for AI leadership. 
• Startup Accelerator: Much of the leading-edge work in AI is done by startups. NVIDIA Inception, a startup accelerator program, has more than 6,000 members with more than 400 based in the UK. NVIDIA will further its investment in this area by providing UK startups with access to the Arm supercomputer, connections to researchers from NVIDIA and partners, technical training and marketing promotion to help them grow. 
• Industry Collaboration: The NVIDIA AI research facility will be an open hub for industry collaboration, providing a uniquely powerful centre of excellence in Britain. NVIDIA’s industry partnerships include GSK, Oxford Nanopore and other leaders in their fields. From helping to fight COVID-19 to finding new energy sources, NVIDIA is already working with industry across the UK today but says it can and will do more. 

“We are ambitious. We can’t wait to build on the foundations created by the talented minds of NVIDIA and Arm to make Cambridge the next great AI centre for the world,” a spokesman said.

Could the pop-up shop provide a glimmer of hope for the retail sector? Real estate lawyer at Hewitsons, Alexandra Messham, asks: Can short-term lettings provide hope for the retail sector and are pop-ups, aka the “Airbnb of the retail world”, the way forward?

UK shopping habits are changing, as Brits adapt their lifestyles to accommodate restrictions. Whilst Kantar reported bumper figures for take-home grocery sales, the overall picture for some grocers will be less positive, as supermarkets continue to feel the impact of a considerable reduction in on-the-go spend on meals, drinks and snacks.

The challenges facing the retail sector before the onslaught of the pandemic were real enough without being forced to close under government guidelines and embrace the ‘new normal’.

A mammoth £2.5bn of quarterly rent fell due last week with, at best, forecasts of only 50% of that likely to be collected as retailers take advantage of a temporary ban on evictions for non-payment of rent.

Co-operation between landlords and tenants has been encouraged and some have been able to agree rent deferral and/or rent reduction arrangements during lockdown in the hope that they can ride out the storm and return to some sort of normality in the future.

However, with a little creativity and cooperation there are alternative arrangements for landlords and tenants to consider, one of which is the short-term letting or pop-up shop.

The pop-up shop allows landlords the ability to generate some return from potentially vacant premises whilst also creating an opportunity for innovative start-ups in the sector.

According to data analysis carried out by Euclid, two-thirds of millennials still shop in store on a weekly basis and then purchase in a ‘channel-agnostic’ way, favouring a mixture of in-store and online experiences.

They place significant importance on an initial immersive experience with a product before proceeding to purchase online. This shows a continuing place in retail for a shop front.

There are several online platforms providing a ‘match making’ service for retailers seeking short term shop space and are being described as the “Airbnb equivalent for the retail market”.

These include Popupshops.com, Thestorefront.com and Appear Here, to name a few. The currently active Appear Here marketing campaign showcases amazing success stories of many start-up businesses that have secured exposure to their market in prime retail locations whilst keeping their overheads and ongoing liabilities to a minimum.

The arrangements generate income for landlords in the interim and allow retailers to launch their brand cautiously before committing to something more long term for the future. Strangely, the pandemic could be providing an opportunity for a new breed of entrepreneur.

A word of caution, in order to ensure that both landlords and tenants achieve what is intended with these arrangements they must be fully aware of the potential risks involved and ensure they seek appropriate advice and legally enforceable agreements.

The law of England and Wales as regards commercial premises occupation is complex with well-defined rules on the rights and remedies of landlords and tenants. It is not rocket science, but inadvertent mistakes can dramatically change the position of the parties as regards their rights and their commercial bargaining position.

Whilst these arrangements may present a viable and attractive short-term solution to the high street’s woes, the importance of ensuring the parties intentions are embodied in a written and iron clad agreement cannot be overstated.

hewitsons.com/people/alexandra-messham

US technology giant Nvidia is understood to have given the UK government firm undertakings about keeping superchip architect Arm in Cambridge after swallowing it for more than $40 billion in the next day or so.

Nvidia, which is acquiring Arm from Japanese parent SoftBank, is said to have agreed the deal and the pricing in a cash plus stock raid.

It has moved to address fears that it was asset stripping Arm’s IP and likely to cripple the company’s Cambridge presence and workforce.

Business Weekly understands that SoftBank was forced to drop plans to strip out Arm’s Internet of Things expertise for two key reasons.

One was to keep Nvidia at the negotiating table and the second to honour a commitment to the UK government when SoftBank clinched the deal.

When SoftBank paid $32bn for Arm in 2016 the Government insisted that it not only maintained Cambridge headcount but also doubled staff numbers locally in five years – by summer or autumn 2021. SoftBank is a long way off hitting that target.

SoftBank and Nvidia agreeing a price and terms for a deal is the easy part of the deal: There is still much water to flow under the transatlantic bridge – and much of it could be turbulent – before Whitehall sanctions an acquisition.

The beleaguered Government cannot risk accusations of a sell-out by letting the UK’s greatest ever technology business and its assets be smuggled secretively away.

Leading entrepreneurs, including Arm co-founder and Cambridge serial investor Hermann Hauser, have urged the Government to veto the raid. Former Labour Party leader Ed Milliband has also called for the most stringent governance of any acquisition.

Arm has consistently declined to comment on the situation and referred all callers to SoftBank, which has endeavoured – without much success – to keep its cards close to its chest.  

Cambridge flexible electronics business PragmatIC has raised an additional £13 million for further global scale-up and appointed former CMR Surgical chair Erik Langaker to a similar role. 

Langaker is also investing in the round as PragmatIC builds towards its vision of a trillion connected circuits.

CEO Scott White told Business Weekly: “I can’t disclose the specific investors but it is from global backers and is our fourth institutional round. In total we have raised around £50m.

“The funding is primarily focused on scaling production and ramping sales both in RFID and beyond via our FlexIC Foundry.”

White also revealed that global headcount had now reached some 90 staff of which around 40 are based in Cambridge UK.

Regarding the new, high profile chairman, White added: “Erik brings us valuable experience alongside market-relevant knowledge at a pivotal time as we scale the business towards our vision of a trillion flexible integrated circuits.”

Langaker is independent chair and complements a strong existing board of directors. 

He has an extensive background of developing and commercialising technology businesses with 30 years’ international experience in private equity and entrepreneurial ventures. 

He has been an active investor and chair or board director in 25 companies. Many are in complementary sectors to PragmatIC, such as his current chair position at Kezzler AS whose patented item-level serialisation technology helps brands combat counterfeit goods, eliminate unauthorised distribution, and improve consumer engagement. 

As chair of CMR Surgical he helped raise more than £250m, leading the business to an increase in valuation from £30m to well over £1 billion and unicorn status – while the number of employees increased from around 40 to nearly 500. 

He brings extensive experience in chairing public companies, most recently as chair of European R & D engineering company Data Respons ASA which was sold to AKKA Technologies SE.

Langaker said: “I am honoured to join PragmatIC and its talented team of innovators at such an exciting time as they are poised to disrupt the electronics industry as well as the supply side of many consumer goods industries.

“With an increasing focus on and need for a circular economy and transparent supply chains, PragmatIC is ‘just in time’ in bringing a cost effective and highly scalable solution to the market.

“Opportunities in RFID alone have the potential to exceed a trillion units, and I can see immediate possibilities across healthcare, logistics and retail just from within my own network of contacts.”

Cambridge-based intelligent clothing company Decorte Future Industries (DFI) is one of 10 companies chosen from over 1100 global applicants for the Techstars 2020 cohort.

Held digitally for the first time, the grand reveal not only put DFI in elite company but also further bolstered its burgeoning cash position. The chosen few receive $120k investment, $1m in perks, and take part in the Techstars signature three-month accelerator programme. 

Emerging from stealth in February, Decorte Future Industries builds clothing that is always-fitting, monitors your health and gives the wearer digital superpowers by allowing them to control devices and robotics through their clothing. DFI’s first-ever pitch was chosen by the Cambridge Angels to be filmed and broadcast on BBC One. 

In May, DFI secured the most competitive Innovate UK grant in history to use its technology to combat COVID-19 in care homes. 

Pitching during the Techstars press conference, CEO and University of Cambridge alumnus Dr Roeland Decorte said the company aimed to “turn the human body itself into the most intuitive UI for interacting with the digital world.”

He said: “Our intelligent clothing has three primary capabilities: body-adaptivity, biometric monitoring, and intuitive remote control of devices and robotics. 

“So our clothing automatically adapts to any wearer’s body shape or size, solving the primary problem in the $1.5 trillion clothing market, uses built-in sensors to enable preventative and predictive healthcare, and allows hands-free control of devices and robotics through intuitive gesture, touch and voice commands – for example controlling a drone simply by speaking and moving or touching your arm.”

Decorte spoke about the need to remove screens as the physical barrier separating the human and digital world, to allow “seamless human machine teaming. In effect we seek to give the wearers of our clothing digital superpowers.” 

Decorte also revealed for the first time that the company had secured just under a quarter million pounds in equity-free funding, additional to the $120k Techstars investment, and was preparing to close a pre-seed round. 

In his pitch, Decorte said: “This means we’re an early stage company going into a period of massive change where we’re growing, taking on new employees and need to scale from essentially an R & D-focused group that arose from the University of Cambridge to one that interacts closely with, and takes feedback directly from our customer segments.”

After the pitch, Decorte said: “We were delighted when, after a rigorous but amazing interview process, we were selected by Techstars out of more than a thousand companies to join what we’ve already seen is an amazing cohort. 

“The programme comes just at the right time for us as we’re growing rapidly and need to build the most solid foundations for long-term expansion: we’re ready to distil the advice of the hundreds of mentors in the Techstars network to do so.”

While the company will be based in Techstars’ London offices in Shoreditch until the end of the year, Decorte saidt the St John’s Innovation Centre company remains fully committed to Cambridge.

He said: “The Cambridge Phenomenon remains such a powerful force – in which Business Weekly has played a key role – and our identity is inextricably tied to the university and the city. We fully plan on keeping our headquarters here in Silicon Fen even while being based in London for the near future.”

In his Techstars pitch, Decorte ended on a light note: “Our company’s overall motto is ‘human-machine teaming for all’, but my personal motto is let’s make Iron Man look outdated.”

Healthcare has found itself tested in recent months, writes Pierre Socha, Partner at Amadeus Capital Partners.

The pandemic has placed an unprecedented strain on hospitals and clinics, from an initial shortage of testing and medical supplies, to accessibility issues among rural and underserved populations, to non-Covid patients prevented from receiving treatments as entire wards are repurposed and hospitals still sealed off.

The virus has exposed fault lines in healthcare delivery that will have lasting side effects on patients and providers. 2020 may well be remembered as the time when medical interactions shifted comprehensively to digital and distributed delivery, and care systems decentralised once again.

Built For Uniformity and Volume

Large hospitals are complex structures, housing a vast range of services and units, that have developed in a patchwork manner over decades. They were able to function optimally as long as care was provided in the manner of Ford’s production line: high volume with low variability. This one-size-fits-all approach was, until recently, the norm – from care delivery to drug discovery.

We are at an inflexion point in healthcare delivery. We have a situation where the industry is expected to deliver 21st century care – personalised, adaptive and continuous – through a rigid and localised infrastructure. 

The disconnect is exacerbated by a growing and ageing population, the rising prevalence of chronic diseases, unequal access to infrastructure and technological advancements, evolving payment models and higher labour costs amidst workforce shortages.

The industry as a whole, and most governments, are facing this unprecedented challenge and are actively supporting innovations that augment the capacity of existing infrastructures, all while gradually enabling decentralisation of care. This is where industry winners are emerging.

We believe that large hospitals will evolve from settings where patients often stay longer than required or frequently return to deal with chronic conditions, to centres adapted to customised treatments for complex cases, often requiring a multi-specialist approach.

It is a known fact that speed and quality of patients’ physical and mental recovery correlate with their mobility, connectivity, independence and closeness to home. As a result, patients are being moved faster out of acute care into specialist centres or into their community where they should continue to receive support.

Substantial growth opportunities lie in improving care delivery inside the hospital and providing better intervention beyond its walls.

Sometimes, solutions already exist and are hiding in plain sight. For all the advancements in connected health, the reality is that even if people are encouraged to live more healthily, monitor their biodata and access telemedicine, most medical care will still be delivered by hospitals, GPs and community nurses. 

As an example, considerable value can be unlocked by enhancing their workflows and delivering outstanding on-site or remote experiences. Sometimes, solutions don’t exist and have to be invented before being integrated into care delivery systems. Think about cell and gene therapies, a new breed of treatments for diseases that have often eluded us. Today they simply cannot be delivered reliably, on time and at scale without a complete rethink of manufacturing processes and logistics.

Personalised and Decentralised Care Delivery

We invest in daring founders who often believe that the future is about fitting healthcare to the patient, not the other way around. When it comes to care delivery, I would group some of these businesses in three categories:

1) Technologies enabling specialist care – These are full-stack providers with a dedicated focus on certain conditions or specific domains. They go deep, vertical and provide expert end-to-end solutions to specific subpopulations of patients. These super-specialised companies can take on risk and be assertive in deploying their products.

• Congenica is the world’s leading solution for rapid genomic data analysis and clinical interpretation. It specialises in the diagnostic of genetic conditions and has become the backbone of genomic programmes across the world, starting in the UK with the 100,000 Genomes initiative.

• Igenomix has pioneered reproductive genetics and works to make a world in which infertility is no longer an impossible barrier. They have helped thousands of couples conceive by providing robust and efficient solutions at the preconception, preimplantation and prenatal phases of their reproductive journeys.

2) Technologies enabling adaptative pathways – Then there are horizontal platforms that create the connective tissue between patients and providers across different care settings. The goal here is to drive efficiency in communications and care coordination.

• Lumeon is the leader in care pathway orchestration, blending together advanced care process models with patient and care team engagement to ensure best practice care delivery at substantial scale. It optimises each individual patient journey – and their medical and financial outcomes – for some of the world’s largest medical insurance and healthcare groups.

• Quibim is a new addition to the Amadeus family. It discovers and validates ultra-high accuracy and quantitative imaging biomarkers and it has one of the richest catalogues of biomarkers and non-invasive detection methodologies in the world. Quibim is a reference radiomics platform for whole-body solutions and in March it also became the official European platform for high-throughput screening of COVID-19 cases.

• Doctify is a British leader in telemedicine and care quality ratings for secondary care. They work with some of the largest healthcare groups and support patients through their journey by removing information asymmetry, inefficiency, and lack of transparency.

3) Technologies enabling personalised logistics – Finally, there is the ‘last mile’ of care delivery. These are companies automating, leveraging AI and the latest in instrumentation and medtech to offer new standards of care and bring the solution to the patient.

• OriBiotech is the future of cell and gene therapy manufacturing. Each patient’s personalised treatment requires a unique manufacturing process. Ori is developing patient-specific, stand-alone manufacturing units that automate and standardise the entire vein-to-vein process, allowing pharmas to bring their life-saving therapies from bench to bedside in a timely and economically viable way.

• Natrox is the gold standard for the healing of chronic wounds. It’s a fully portable and discreet device that restores mobility and independence to patients. It heals the worst of wounds systematically and at an unprecedented rate – the holy grail in wound care. It is a poster technology when it comes to continuous care being transferred from acute back to homes.

• Organox has already helped transplant hundreds of livers all over the world. Its technology is fully automated, easy-to-use and can preserve the donor organ in a functional and optimal state for up to 24 hours – 3 times longer than other methods. It is transforming logistics as organs can be delivered over thousands of miles and need not be transplanted in the middle of the night anymore, materially improving outcomes.

Healthcare As A Service

As with any industry, a large and delighted user base drives rapid growth. Over and above clinical outcome or cost-efficiency, what these selected companies have in common is that they also nail user experience. You will struggle to achieve mass adoption if you limit yourself to key opinion leaders’ endorsements or clinical evidence. These are certainly essential milestones, but they are only the first step.

Users must be front and centre for a product to take off – and they often are not the patients. Think about augmenting existing infrastructure and the workflow of nurses for instance; if they are your users, obsess about making their lives simpler. 

Focus on those who, day after day, run our healthcare services, often doing the impossible to keep us all safe and healthy. Help them and they will become lifelong ambassadors.

amadeuscapital.com

Cambridge technology sensation Riverlane has created history in the commercial development of quantum computers with its latest success – and earned a handsome tribute from Arm co-founder Hermann Hauser.

The Cambridge University spin-out’s successful UK trial of a high-performance, universal operating system is a landmark moment for maximising the power and reach of quantum computing.

In Deltaflow.OS, which has been created by Riverlane, applications are implemented on quantum hardware through a carefully chosen interface, or “hardware abstraction layer.”

Since this approach enables rapid control of operations, Deltaflow.OS will improve the performance for near-term quantum computing applications by orders of magnitude compared to other interfaces, such as those used by IBM. 

For example, computational chemistry applications important in drug discovery or materials design will run 30 times faster on near-term devices. 

When carrying out quantum error-correction, which is essential to build large and reliable quantum computers, the performance improvement due to Deltaflow.OS will be on the order of 1000 fold, the business reveals.

A standardised definition of this interface makes Deltaflow.OS portable to all four leading qubit technologies.

Riverlane CEO Dr Steve Brierley said: “We have solved a really important problem in quantum computing: how hardware and software interact whilst teasing the highest possible performance out of a quantum computer.

“This finally shifts the complexity of designing quantum computer applications from hardware to software.”

Quantum computers currently producing calculations, such as those used by Google and IBM, run on bespoke operating systems invisible to external users. These are not portable to other hardware technologies or other labs. 

To external users, IBM offers an interface set at a very high level which leads to low-performance implementations.

“Quantum computing is currently where classical computing would be if it had to painstakingly produce an individual, tailored operating system for every existing conventional computer in the world. Not very far, in other words,” said Dr Brierley.

The trial demonstrated that Deltaflow.OS successfully completed a key technical task using the hardware abstraction layer – the ‘hello world’ requirement of quantum computing – known as a ‘Rabi oscillation.’

The task was carried out on a quantum computer at the University of Oxford in partnership with quantum hardware company Oxford Ionics, which operates with trapped-ion technology.

As Business Weekly previously revealed, a Riverlane-led consortium, consisting of Oxford Ionics, Hitachi Europe, Arm, the National Physical Laboratory as well as hardware startups Oxford Quantum Circuits, Seeqc, Universal Quantum and Duality Quantum Photonics, was recently awarded a £7.6 million grant by the UK government to bring Deltaflow.OS to market.

Within this grant, Deltaflow.OS will be installed on all working quantum computers in the UK which includes all four quantum hardware technologies: trapped-ion qubits, superconducting qubits, silicon qubits and photonic qubits.

Standardising the software-hardware interaction for quantum computers under the leadership of the National Physical Laboratory, this will transform the UK quantum technology ecosystem and make the UK a world-leading force in quantum computing.

Dr Hauser, who co-founded the iconic Cambridge success stories Acorn Computers and superchip architect Arm. lauded Riverlane’s progress in his capacity as venture partner of Amadeus Capital – an investor in the business.

He said: “Defining the right interface between hardware and software was instrumental for the success of the microprocessor. I am excited about the UK quantum computing industry taking steps for this success story to repeat itself.”

Quantum computers consist of fragile qubits equivalent to bits, the smallest unit of data on a traditional computer. Qubits require a complex control system, which an operating system must run on, to keep them operable.
Deltaflow.OS writes code directly onto all elements of that control system. 

Since the fastest elements, FPGAs, can be harnessed for time-critical tasks this improves reliability and greatly increases the speed at which a calculation can be performed. 

Applications written in Deltaflow.OS are faster than those written in IBM’s Qiskit because they make use of FPGAs where necessary.

The increased computing power promised by quantum computers is expected to drive innovation in the chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry and healthcare. 

In the long term, quantum computers will transform cryptography and may have an impact on machine learning, artificial intelligence, agriculture, manufacturing, finance and energy.

Backed by leading venture-capital funds and the University of Cambridge, Riverlane develops software that transforms quantum computers from experimental technology into commercial products. 

It teases the highest possible performance out of quantum software to reach quantum advantage sooner. 

By making its software portable across technologies, early adopters don’t need to choose which technology to pursue. The company goes deep into the stack so that hardware partners can focus on the physics and build better full-stack solutions. 

Riverlane also works with the chemical, pharmaceutical and materials industries to improve algorithms and specify early ‘killer’ applications of quantum computers.