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.
Timeline
Funded Companies
Synthace is a software company based out of London, UK building automation software that gives biologists the ability to control and analyze the performance of lab hardware.
Company developing distributed hyper-scale cloud operating system and distributed simulation engine
BioBeats is an artificial Intelligence company founded by David Plans, Nadeem Kassam and Davide Morelli.
An artificial Intelligence company with a platform that acts as a search engine and holds summaries of scientific research papers. It is located in London, England and was founded in 2013.
An artificial intelligence company that has created software to combat astroturfing, harmful social media manipulation campaigns. It was founded in 2018 and has offices in London, England and San Francisco, California.
Cambridge, MA-based company developing targeted mRNA therapeutics for cancer and other diseases.
Developer of VR powered cognitive treatments intended to deliver psychological treatments.
Optellum is a medical diagnostics company founded by Vaclav Potesil, Timor Kadir, Jerome Declerck, Sir Mike Brady FRS FREng FMedSci and Lyndsey Pickup.
Ellipsis Health is an artificial intelligence company founded by Mainul I. Mondal in 2014.
Phenomic AI is a drug discovery with artificial intelligence company
Climax Foods is a company that manufactures plant-based foods, and specifically cheeses
AI and analytics-based platform.
Building a universal quantum computer
Artificial Neural Networks company
Beyond is a comparison online marketplace for funeral services. The platform was previously called FuneralBooker, and currently consists of independent funeral services working through the platform. The company is headquartered in London, UK.
Digital therapeutics company for inflammatory bowel diseases.
Phenomic AI is a Toronto-based company.
Biomage Ltd is a Glasgow-based company founded in 2019.
A company developing Edge AI for autonomous cars.
People
Alasdair Thong
Venture Partner
Csaba Konkoly
Venture Partner
Isabel Fox
Founding Partner
James Joll
Chairman
John Spindler
Venture Partner
Lomax Ward
Founding Partner
Miao He
Associate
Peter Crane
Venture Partner