Luminous Ventures

Luminous Ventures is a London-based venture capital fund investing in Deep Technology at Seed and Series A stages in Europe and North America. Luminous looks to invest in founders whose technology and ambition they believe in.

In particular, Luminous invests at the intersection of deep technology and human health. They believe the best returns will be delivered from the application of artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality, augmented reality, edge computing, robotics, quantum technologies and synthetic biology to healthcare, life science, nutrition, food and agriculture.

Luminous works with founders and there are examples where Luminous’ involvement has helped the founders on their journey. Isabel Fox, founder of Luminous, offers her experience and network to help founders across go-to-market strategy, commercial partners, public relations and hiring. Lomax Ward, her co-founder, uses his experience in later stage growth capital investing and legal background to add value to the founders as they scale operations, including help with regulation and commercial contracting.

Luminous has invested in 25 companies, with many emerging from top university ecosystems such as Oxford, Imperial and University College London. Companies include Synthace, developing a revolutionary new operating system for laboratories; Hadean, building a new high-performance operating system for the cloud; Optellum, developing an AI-based diagnostic for lung cancer; Vital Biosciences, designing a new generation of tools to empower individuals in monitoring their health and managing disease; Ellipsis Health, a new AI-based diagnostic for mental health; Universal Quantum, building a universal quantum computer, Phenomic AI, leveraging deep learning and co-culture cell models to discover new cancer drugs; Climax Foods, using data science to transform plants into foods that we love. Luminous Ventures spun out of White Cloud Capital in 2018.

Luminous shares boards and has co-invested alongside leading investors such as Khosla Ventures, Draper Esprit, Iconiq, Founders Fund, Hoxton Ventures, Speedinvest, Inovia, Horizons Ventures, Sofinnova, CTI Life Sciences, OSI and IQ Capital.