Cambridge Cluster companies build global status and hook more than $2 billion funding in 2025

There may be more inching through the pipeline, of course, as companies tie up loose ends before the festive break.

Fundraising is only part of the success equation as we review the outstanding elements of an often tricky 2025. One of the major successes has been the continued rise and rise of the Quantum Computing segment.

Here alone there is much to report. Quantinuum, formerly Cambridge Quantum Computing, in autumn launched Helios - designed to accelerate quantum computing adoption by global enterprises and revolutionise GenAI.

Global heavyweights such as NVIDIA, Amgen, SoftBank, JP Morgan Chase, BMW Group and BlueQubit were among Quantinuum’s community of collaborators in growing out the venture into a broader tech world.

In September we revealed that Quantinuum had effected a $600 million global fundraise at $10 billion pre-money equity valuation. Quanta Computer, NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm) and QED Investors joined existing shareholders JPMorganChase, Mitsui, Amgen, Cambridge Quantum Holdings, Serendipity Capital and Honeywell – all of whom reinvested in the round. It also included participation from new backers MESH and Korea Investment Partners.

Nu Quantum, a category creator and leader in distributed quantum computing, last week raised $60m in a Series A as it targets a large share of a $1 trillion global market.

The massively oversubscribed round was led by National Grid Partners and included participation from Gresham House Ventures and Morpheus Ventures - all new backers; there was follow-on support from existing investors Amadeus Capital Partners, IQ Capital, Ahren Capital, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, East Innovate, NSSIF and Sumitomo (Presidio Ventures).

Nu Quantum says it is the largest financing round ever raised by a pure-play quantum networking company and the largest quantum Series A in the UK to date.

Another Cambridge company, Riverlane, expanded its European footprint by opening a facility in Delft in the Netherlands under the keen eye of Professor Barbara Terhal. Riverlane is a global leader in quantum error correction.

In the middle of November, we revealed that The Milner Therapeutics Institute in Cambridge, led by Professor Sir Tony Kouzarides, had set up a Quantum Computing unit at the centre through a shrewd collaboration with Yonsei University in South Korea.

Sir Tony said: “Our collaboration will allow us full access to their IBM System One Quantum Computer – South Korea’s first and only on-site superconducting quantum system. It will be used to probe healthcare issues such as target ID and drug discovery.”

Strong start to 2025

Nyobolt, which makes high power batteries with ultra fast charging times, started the year by revealing it had clocked more than £9m in revenue over the previous 12 months.

A difficult year for Life Sciences had yet to rear its head as Alchemab reported a supercharged alliance with global giant Eli Lilly.

Innovation influencer 42 Technology launched a new medical device in Las Vegas and Arm entered the fast lane in a deal with Aston Martin as well as literally chipping into a Mercedes-Benz drive for perfection. Law firm Mills & Reeve advised data security firm Eckoh on a £169 billion takeover steered by Bridgepoint.

Luminance expanded in Cambridge, as it was later to do globally, while Owlstone, the Cambridge Science Park breath biopsy firm, raised $27m.

Cambridge startup AnthroTek revealed that its hyper-realistic silicone innovation had been snapped up by movie moguls in Hollywood and other users climbed onboard in a seminal year for the young business.

US business ClariMed opened a Cambridge facility - its first in the UK - while Arm posted record Q3 results and revealed soaring global chip demand.

HealthTech pioneer Quibim closed a $50m Series A and Sortera Bio, a spinout from the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular biology, zoomed into the spotlight to pioneer a Deep Screening platform set to redefine early biologics discovery & engineering.

Local VC doyen Cambridge Innovation Capital launched a £100m Opportunity Fund to invest in growing Life Science and DeepTech businesses. CMR Surgical passed the 30,000 operations milestone with its Versus robot arm for keyhole surgery.

RedCloud in Cambridge took open commerce technology to the world with a Nasdaq float in the US. Cambridge GaN Devices, the power technology game changer, raised $32m Series C growth capital. A $75m Series C funding haul took Legal-Grade AI specialist Luminance to a $115m total raise in 12 months.

TRIMTECH raised $31m from UK and US backers to help scale globally while, also in biotech, Finnish company Orion Corporation decided to open a biologics R & D centre in the Cluster.

Real estate consultancy Cheffins toasted its 200th anniversary and in a neat piece of symmetry Aviva and Brydell invested £40.4m in a Cambridge property play. Brain power from Cambridge University saw Cambridge Enterprise, its tech transfer arm, drive 41 investments in 12 months.

A stunning $200m raise signalled CMR Surgical’s intention to take on American giants in their own back yard. Neighbouring microcomputer innovator Raspberry Pi increased new product innovation to mark a golden year of innovation for the business. Cellcentric expanded by opening new offices in the US. Forty years of the Arm chip was toasted globally.

Defence and aerospace company Marshall won a major deal to produce sonar modules to fortify the Royal Navy’s at-sea deterrent. Boehringer and Tessellate Bio partnered in a 500m Euros deal to tackle hard-to-treat cancers.

Cambrionix kicked off a fantastic year with a tech launch to the International Space Station while cash from France and Singapore helped prompt investment fund LongRiver to establish a presence in Cambridge - headed by former TusPark ace Jerry Wu.

Alchemab revealed it could net $415m from a deal with partner Eli Lilly - which was to bear fruit in September’s Business Weekly Awards.

In mid-May Johnson Matthey sold its catalyst business to Honeywell International for $2.4bn. CellCentric was back in the headlines as CEO Will West unveiled a $120m Series C raise to boost international expansion.

Business Weekly marked its 35th anniversary of covering startups, innovators and influencers. Levidian turned up the summer heat by announcing a collaboration with Astra Polymers to supercharge graphene adoption across the Middle East.

June ended in the hottest of fashions but there was some welcome ice! San Jose Sharks ice hockey team took Cambridge Consultants technology to explore the role of AI in coaching.

Echion Technologies made waves in Asia’s battery segment with a novel material that delivers faster charging and improved safety for industrial vehicles.

Big Pharma stole the headlines as AstraZeneca revealed an $8bn splurge on novel China projects. And in the footsteps of Faraday Superdielectrics in Cambridge launched genuinely revolutionary battery technology.

Automotive tech innovator Secondmind opened its first operational base in the US - based in the car capital of Detroit.

A $40m London-based fund backed by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation among others unveiled its first major investment and Cambridge AI drug discovery company Healx was the beneficiary. It was one of a number of signal successes for Healx in 2025.

AstraZeneca in Cambridge pledged to create thousands of new jobs by investing $50 billion in manufacturing and research facilities in the United States. The irrepressible Cambridge Innovation Capital pledged to invest more than £100m in University spin-outs. Paragraf, the Cambridge chipmaker, raised $55m but claimed that it almost ran out of cash waiting for the UK government to clear funds from the UAE.

Startup CuspAI, on a mission to solve the breakthrough materials needed to power human progress, raised a stunning $100m from Singapore and the US.

Also in September CuspAI was to be crowned winner of the 35th Anniversary Business Weekly Awards. Arm was named Champion of Champions - elected from all the companies that had been named Business of the Year since the competition started in 1990.

Other winners included Raspberry Pi, which won both Quoted Company and International Trade, Cambridge Consultants, Cambrionix, Cambridge Intelligence, Quantinuum, Nyobolt, Wave Photonics, Nuclera, Constructive Bio, Alchemab and a host of other potential greats. Susan Hill, CEO of Mestag Therapeutics, won the inaugural Cambridge Spark Female Leader in AI Award.

There were special awards for two startups that have tremendous global potential - AnthroTek and SKC Games Studios which conjured the avatar of codebreaker Alan Turing and is now backed by SoftBank and others as it pursues global success.

Cambrionix clients, incidentally, include Apple Education, Google, Heathrow, the NHS, Porsche, SpaceX, Uber and the Singapore Health Authority.

October brought an announcement by AstraZeneca that it was to launch a UK-US listing in addition to its Stockmarket presence in Stockholm. Owlstone Medical joined a US-led elite to help pioneer a new, at home cancer detection solution.