Six companies join as Early-Stage Company members
Advanced Oxford is delighted to welcome six new companies into our membership. Brill Power , ColdQuanta , Learning with Experts , Lightricity, Nucleome Therapeutics and Quantum Dice have joined us in our work to support the growth and development of Oxfordshire’s innovation economy.
Advanced Oxford has created an ‘Early-Stage’ company membership, opening up participation to a group of companies who bring different experience and perspectives to our work. Recognising that many of our core and founding members are larger, more established companies, the not-for-profit membership organisation has decided to invite a group of smaller, more recently incorporated companies to contribute. The new members come from a range of sectors, including two members that are commercialising quantum technologies, both of whom are part of the emerging cluster of quantum companies within Oxfordshire. The group includes start-up companies, spin-outs from both the University of Oxford and from larger companies and represents technologies as diverse as ‘the dark genome’, education-tech and battery management and control.
Our Early-Stage company members have first-hand experience of the challenges faced in setting up and scaling a company, including key issues such as securing funding and attracting and retaining talent. Their perspectives on finding and securing suitable workspaces, transport and housing will contribute to our work and ensure that we can represent the fullest range of views as we engage with policy and decision makers. All six businesses are already supporting our work on gender diversity, our review of the innovation ecosystem and are providing insights that will inform Advanced Oxford’s emerging work programme on laboratory provision across Oxfordshire.
Commenting on the new members, Advanced Oxford’s Managing Director said, “It is fantastic to welcome the six new companies into Advanced Oxford. Our work to bring evidence, perspectives and insight from the knowledge economy into policy, decision-making and investment is significantly enhanced by having the involvement of this group of exciting businesses. Each is using scientific know-how and technology to bring new products to market and the challenges they face on this journey will inform our work as we champion Oxfordshire’s innovation ecosystem.”
The new members complement expertise that has recently been added to Advanced Oxford’s work, through the addition of a group of Sponsor Members – businesses within the region that play an important role in supporting innovative, research and development intensive companies as professional services providers.
About our new members
Brill Power
Brill Power develops intelligent battery management and control technology to increase the lifetime, reliability, safety, and sustainability of lithium-ion battery packs for stationary energy storage and electric vehicles. Our product is a game-changing combination of hardware and software optimizing the capability of battery cells within battery packs.
Battery cells do not degrade uniformly over time meaning battery packs underperform, behaving only as well as their weakest link. Therefore, packs must be oversized by up to 20% to meet lifetime requirements and when one series-connected module dies, the entire pack is sent to waste. By managing the cells within packs more intelligently, Brill Power can extend battery lifetime by up to 60% or deliver up to 15% more energy when a conventional battery system would be discarded. Our technology can be used when designing packs for both first and second life battery applications, meaning batteries can be as intelligent and sustainable as possible. Brill Power is a spin-out company from the University of Oxford.
ColdQuanta
ColdQuanta is a global quantum technology company solving the world’s most challenging problems. The company harnesses quantum mechanics to build and integrate quantum computers, sensors, and networks. From fundamental physics to leading edge commercial products, ColdQuanta enables “quantum everywhere” through our ecosystem of devices and platforms.
Learning with Experts
Learning with Experts is the first online learning provider to combine a global, interactive classroom, with broadcast quality videos, accredited curriculums, and true expert teachers – wherever you are. We are already experiencing great traction and have found product market fit in specific high growth sectors experiencing exponential growth in the current consumer environment including,
- Health and wellbeing – customers include Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and Boots No7 Beauty influencers and staff;
- 14 NHS Trusts are working with Learning with Experts. Projects include providing online education for patients on hospital waiting lists, help for patients with chronic health conditions and creating supported online communities;
- Horticulture and Design, working with Royal Horticultural Society and Designers Guild;
- Food and Nutrition, in collaboration with Michel Roux Junior and Raymond Blanc;
- University of Buckingham at Masters level, the largest teacher training university in the UK and pioneers in innovation in education.
We have over 100 well known experts – individuals and brands – in our educator community. We strongly believe that Learning with Experts will have an impact on a global basis, reaching millions of people worldwide and positively changing lives and behaviours through education.
Lightricity
Lightricity is an environmental impact focused company aiming to eliminate the need for battery proliferation in many applications of IoT which threaten to add billions to trillions of batteries to environmental waste. We enable organisations wishing to realise the benefits of IoT and wireless technologies to do so without the scalability and cost challenges of battery change as well as the sustainability impact. Lightricity is based in the Oxford Science Park and has patented novel indoor photovoltaic technology (PV) material structures, manufacturing processes and power management architectures that enable entirely battery-free devices. This PV, already in volume production, is six times more efficient at harvesting indoor light (LED, fluorescent) than competing options including at much lower light levels and over a much wider temperature range. This has changed the possibilities on what can now be practically powered. It has enabled us to develop a range of entirely light-powered battery-free devices including asset tracking tags, sensor devices and indoor navigation beacons that have been deployed in UK hospitals, industrial and retail applications.
Nucleome Therapeutics
Nucleome Therapeutics is decoding the dark matter of the human genome to uncover novel ways to treat disease. The dark genome holds more than 90% of disease-linked genetic variants whose value remains untapped, representing a significant opportunity for drug discovery and development. The Company has the unique ability to link these variants to gene function and precisely map disease pathways. Nucleome’s cell type-specific platform creates high resolution 3D genome structure maps and enables variant functional validation at scale in primary cell types, enabling the discovery and development of novel, better and safer drugs. The initial focus of the company is on lymphocytes and related autoimmune disease. Nucleome’s ambition is to build a robust pipeline of drug assets, with corresponding biomarkers. Nucleome Therapeutics was founded by leading experts in gene regulation from the University of Oxford.
Quantum Dice
Quantum Dice is an award-winning spinout from the University of Oxford. Leveraging its patented source-device independent self-certification (DISC™) protocol developed at the University of Oxford, Quantum Dice is developing the first compact, high-speed and continuously self-certifying quantum random number generator (QRNG). Self-certification is a feature which enables a real-time and reactive health check of the encryption key generator instead of the retrospective and static entropy tests that are currently used across the security industry. This is important for both existing classical and quantum security systems. Quantum Dice is creating standards for QRNGs alongside the UK’s National Physical Laboratory and is currently working with customers to integrate QRNGs into security systems for a wide range of applications, from protecting terrestrial Internet of Things (IoT) networks to satellite communication systems.
