UK startups raised £1.94 billion between 5–9 January 2026, driven by a standout week for AI infrastructure, alongside continued investor appetite for biotech, agtech, fintech and enterprise software.
A blockbuster infrastructure commitment dominated the period, while life sciences, software and consumer startups continued to attract capital across a wide range of stages. The mix of large institutional cheques and smaller early-stage rounds highlights a market backing both long-term capacity build-out and near-term commercial execution.
Weekly snapshot
11 startups funded
£1.935bn raised
18 founders backed
31 VCs and angels involved
AI and data infrastructure: power and trust take centre stage
Funding activity this week concentrated on two critical layers of the AI stack: the physical infrastructure required to run large models, and the software needed to make AI outputs auditable and enterprise-ready.
At the infrastructure end of the market, Global Technical Realty secured a £1.9bn growth commitment backed by KKR and Oak Hill. The funding will accelerate the rollout of power-dense, AI-ready data centres across Europe, supporting greenfield capacity and new market entry to meet rising hyperscale and AI demand.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, WholeSum raised £730k, combining a Women TechEU grant with a pre-seed round led by Twin Path Ventures. The company is commercialising a hybrid-AI platform for auditable qualitative analysis and will use the funding to accelerate product development and run enterprise API pilots in healthcare and research.
Together, the deals underline a layered AI investment market: large pools of institutional capital underwriting infrastructure, while specialist funds and public grants help de-risk early-stage data and compliance tooling.
This week’s AI & data infrastructure deals
Global Technical Realty – £1.9bn
WholeSum – £730k
Biotech and agtech: platforms that turn biology into products
Life sciences funding this week focused on platform plays that translate complex biological data into commercial pipelines, spanning therapeutics and climate-resilient agriculture.
Engitix raised £20m in a Series A extension from Netherton Investments to advance extracellular-matrix-targeted programmes in cancer and fibrosis, while expanding its human tissue dataset-driven discovery platform.
Biographica closed a £7m round led by Faber VC to scale its AI platform for discovering drought-tolerant and disease-resistant crop genes, with plans to expand proprietary data collection and deepen partnerships with seed companies including BASF | Nunhems.
Meanwhile, Bloemteknik secured £2.5m from Foresight and the Investment Fund for Wales to commercialise GreenFingers, its autonomous LED lighting system for growers, supporting rollout, operational scaling and international expansion from Cardiff.
The rounds reflect continued confidence in applied bioscience and agtech, with investors backing both lab-stage discovery platforms and near-term hardware commercialisation.
This week’s biotech & agtech deals
Engitix – £20m
Biographica – £7m
Bloemteknik – £2.5m
Fintech: modernising institutional fund operations
Reported by startupmag, Fintech funding this week centred on cloud-native, AI-enabled systems designed for institutional investors and fund managers.
MAIA Technology raised £4m in Series A funding to develop a unified platform for portfolio and fund operations, with the capital earmarked for product development and systems integrations as it targets hedge funds and institutional clients.
The deal reflects a broader push to modernise fund infrastructure, as asset managers look for end-to-end tooling that reduces operational friction and improves transparency.
This week’s fintech deal
MAIA Technology – £4m
Enterprise software: scaling AI-enabled efficiency
Enterprise software investment focused on manufacturing reliability and developer tooling, with an emphasis on AI integration and international expansion.
Redgate Software announced a strategic growth investment from Bregal Sagemount to support global expansion and deeper AI integration across its database operations portfolio. Terms were undisclosed, and the transaction is expected to make Sagemount the majority shareholder, subject to approvals.
At an earlier stage, iMaintain raised £250k in pre-seed funding backed by SFC Capital to build a platform that captures and reuses maintenance knowledge for manufacturers, targeting reduced recurring faults and improved factory reliability.
This week’s SaaS and industrial tech deals
Redgate Software – undisclosed
iMaintain – £250k
Consumer mobility and social apps: subscription models tested
Smaller raises this week backed subscription-led consumer models across mobility, social and connected fitness, with founders testing hardware-agnostic approaches and fleet expansion strategies.
Apex Rides raised £420k to pivot its connected-fitness product into a hardware-agnostic app compatible with any Bluetooth-enabled bike.
GIN e-bikes secured £186k in a loan-style investment from Toloka.vc to expand its PLUTO subscription fleet by 160 e-bikes across London.
CLIQ raised a seven-figure investment led by Artesian to accelerate international growth for its social app focused on turning online connections into in-person meetups.
The deals point to investor comfort with measured scaling and subscription economics, rather than capital-intensive consumer launches.
This week’s mobility & consumer deals
Apex Rides – £420k
GIN e-bikes – £186k
CLIQ – undisclosed (seven-figure round).
