Prospectral secures $1.2m as investors see the light

Prospectral, founded by four University of Cambridge researchers in optical physics and semiconductor engineering, has raised a $1.2 million pre-seed round from Creator Fund, Unruly Capital and Cambridge Enterprise Ventures.

The funding will fuel development of the company’s cutting-edge image sensor technology – enabling ultra-compact cameras for materials detection and analysis.

From industrial monitoring, to autonomous vehicles, to medical diagnostics, computer vision is already revolutionising a range of industries. Materials-aware vision, however, requires data that conventional (RGB) cameras cannot provide – spectral data. But the expense, size and fragility of current spectral camera systems is prohibitive for many spaces.

Prospectral has designed a new approach to spectral imaging and is building a technology to empower companies with dramatically lower-cost, more compact, and less complex cameras for gathering the data required to detect and analyse materials.

It says its on-chip integration is compatible with semiconductor manufacturing processes, is ultra-compact and lightweight and is compatible with smartphone-module scale, drone/satellite-based systems.

The team say the technology is physically robust with no moving parts, precisely aligned or fragile optical components.

The quartet taking the business forward are Dr Gwen Wyatt-Moon, who is CEO; Dr Tom Albrow-Owen (CTO); Dr Oliver Burton (CSO) and Dr Peter Christopher (CIO).