Andrew Seddon

Some of you know that we have been working on something big and we can finally talk about it. CommonAI has its first members: the UK's Advances Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) has joined the Scaling Inference Programme as part of a £50M project to bring down the cost of compute for AI and accelerate the route to market for selected startups. We are building a lab here in the UK to explore cutting edge hardware and software technologies and accelerate their route to market. The startups that we are working with in this programme will be announced soon so look out for more details, but in the meantime you can read about us in the Times or get in touch to find out more.

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The future of volumetric video is wireless! Introducing nCOMM — the world’s first wireless volumetric video capturing system powered by 4D Gaussian Splats. Developed over two years in collaboration with the Smart Internet Lab at the University of Bristol, and supported by Innovate UK, Nephelie Technologies Limited is unveiling nCOMM at Mobile World Congress 2026. By combining multi-path QUIC streaming over a multi-access wireless network with advanced 4D Gaussian splat technology, nCOMM enables flexible, scalable capture of ultra-realistic digital twins — from human performances to large outdoor environments — all powered by the same modular nCOMM multi-camera pod. In the attached video, we demonstrate how we used: • 8 pods to capture a human narrator in 4D Gaussian Splats • 1 pod to scan Bristol's Millennium Square and the JOINER Platform Mobile • A seamless in-house workflow to combine both models into a unified immersive presentation The result demonstrates how wireless volumetric capture can move beyond controlled studio environments — unlocking new possibilities for telecom, e-commerce, immersive media, digital twins, and beyond. 📍 Join us at Hall 7, Stand 7B47 at Mobile World Congress 2026 next week and experience the next evolution of telecom-enabled immersive capture. #Wireless #VolumetricVideo #DigitalTwins #MWC26 #6G #Connectivity #TelecomInnovation #DigitalTwins #FutureOfTelecom #JOINER #3DGS #4DGS #VolumetricVideo #GaussianSplatting #VirtualProduction #XR #VFX #3DScanning #RadianceFields #spatialfields #CreativeTools #3DWeb

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Seriously, stop what you're doing and try this - just for curiosity's sake. All you need is an ordinary Python environment. Scientific tooling is usually buried under a million layers of arcana. This is a 100% accessible way to simulate MKIDs detectors in a cutting-edge readout environment. Even if you don't know what quantum sensing is, it'll take you on a 5-minute round trip from "WTF is this" back to "WTF is this", with some neat graphics along the way.

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🧩 Before RoboBlocks… there was something we called “IoT Tag” Like many of the systems we build at ROBO, RoboBlocks didn’t start as a polished product. It started as an idea. Then a rough prototype. Then many iterations. One of the earliest versions was something we internally called the IoT Tag: The goal was simple but powerful: Make it extremely easy to create interactive IoT experiences without complex setup. Back then, it was far from what RoboBlocks is becoming today: 🔹 Basic hardware modules 🔹 Early communication experiments 🔹 Minimal firmware 🔹 Lots of trial and error But the core philosophy was already there: 💡 Modularity 💡 Accessibility 💡 Learning through building Looking back, it’s a great reminder that every system starts messy before it becomes meaningful. Now we’re curious: 👉 Have you ever built an early prototype that later evolved into something much bigger? 👉 What was its “first version” like? We’d love to hear your stories 👇 ROBO Educational and Research Robotics #robotics #iot #embedded #makers #hardware #innovation #prototyping #engineering #stem #productdevelopment

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“£250K under SEIS isn’t enough.” That’s the quiet frustration I hear from UK deep-tech founders trying to build world-changing companies-on pocket change. Meanwhile: 💸 Silicon Valley deep-tech rounds often start at $3M 🔬 R&D heavy startups burn through £250K in 3–6 months 🏦 Investors want higher stakes, not tighter caps So why are we still asking founders to build fusion reactors, biotech platforms, and quantum systems under a £250K ceiling? This month, Empirical Ventures and others proposed a bold fix: Raise the SEIS limit to £1M, and increase the investor cap from £200K → £500K This could: ✅ Supercharge first rounds for science-heavy startups ✅ Attract bigger angel cheques earlier ✅ Keep UK innovation in the UK And it sends a bigger message: That the UK backs the ambitious—not just the bootstrapped. Curious to hear from other founders & angels: 👉 Would a £1M SEIS limit change how you build or invest? 🚀🧠🇬🇧💬📈 #venturecapital #angelinvestors #techstartups #biotechinnovation #quantumtechnology #fundraising #investmentopportunities #ukentrepreneurship

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Just spotted this contribution guide in the NanoClaw repo and I suspect we'll see this everywhere soon. Coding agents change the economics of integrations. The traditional playbook is to build a massive integration catalogue. Hundreds of connectors that most customers never use, but you need them for competitive checkboxes. It's bloat by design. Enterprises get the most value from a custom integration, and now it's cheaper than ever to build one. I remember Matthaus Krzykowski from dltHub making this point a few years ago. They were approaching data pipelines the same way: give people the primitives to build the integration they actually need, not a pre-built feature that doesn't quite cut it. We're moving from "does it have the integration?" to "can I make it do what I need?" And that's a better question.

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Why pre-seed deals can fail at Investment Committee Unfortunately you can be a brilliant founder and still have your deal fail at IC. 😐 This happened recent when we met a fantasctic medtech hardware CTO, but whose longer-term funding plan felt unachievable, leaving too much risk for us of a down-round before the company had real traction. It’s gutting when one (important) piece of the jigsaw puzzle can stop a deal. In other cases I’ve seen a founder with a 9/10 track record, energy, and ambition but who is only tackling a 2/10 problem. Here, however talented they are, if the market impact feels too small or too niche, again the IC might says no. To be clear, no one should expect perfection at pre-seed - we call it assessment through a “pre-seed lens” - but you DO need to be solving a problem so urgent and valuable it’s worth the best years of your life. And you have to understand the gaps and have a plan (hopefully with our help) as to how they can be filled quickly. At Investment Committee we aren’t just asking “are you good?” We’re asking: is this opportunity worth the capital, the risk and the time, right now? That is the bar…and it’s high. And it’s why the hardest deals for us to pass are not actually the “bad ones”, but the ones with great founders that are almost, but not quite, there….

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"What's the catch?" Every developer asks it. We fund the solar and battery hardware on every home. No cost to them. No cost to their buyers. I get it. Solar leases have a rough history in the UK. Companies offered free installs during the feed-in tariff days, then locked homeowners into rigid leases. Buyout prices were hidden, stayed fixed or even increased while the hardware lost value. Exiting was difficult by design. Meant to restrict homeowners from ever owning outright. Some people are still stuck in those deals today. We designed our model around the opposite principle: the flexibility to own, fairly, should be a fundamental right. Here's how the model actually works: We own the hardware. Homeowners pay a fixed monthly subscription for a typical 20% saving on their energy costs in year one. Our price stays flat. Energy prices don't. So savings grow every year. We handle all maintenance for the 25 year term. No hidden upkeep costs. The real difference with Gryd Energy is what happens when someone wants out. Rent-a-roof leases: £20,000 buyout on day one. Still £20,000 ten years later. Our buyout decreases every year. After 25 years, it's gifted to the homeowner. And if they want to buy outright before then, they can. One of our partner's sales directors put it to her team like this: "You're giving buyers the chance to fix their energy costs for 25 years at a discount, without paying for the hardware. And if they ever want to own it, they can." When a developer partner's sales team starts selling it back to you in their own words, unprompted, that tells you something.

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https://lnkd.in/du9-6Vxh A very interesting read for everyone focused on the UK's modern industrial strategy, digital & technologies - especially page 40 🤔 SCI Semiconductor https://lnkd.in/du9-6Vxh

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The MPC’s narrow 5–4 vote to hold interest rates at 3.75% is more than a monetary footnote — it’s a signal moment for the UK’s STEM economy. After six rate cuts since August 2024, today’s pause suggests the Bank wants to feel the ground beneath its feet. With inflation expected to hit 2% this spring, we’re finally entering a period where long‑term R&D investment can breathe again. 🔥My hot takes? 🔹 Stability is the new catalyst. Predictable inflation gives innovators permission to think beyond the next quarter. 🔹 STEM hiring could re‑accelerate. A steadier macro backdrop helps firms commit to skills, labs and infrastructure. 🔹 Capital may loosen — but not uniformly. The Bank’s caution means funding will favour projects with clear commercial pathways. 🔹 This is a window, not a guarantee. Further cuts might come later this year, but only if the data behaves. 💡For UK science, engineering, tech and manufacturing, this feels like the first genuinely constructive macro signal in years. The challenge now is to convert monetary breathing room into real‑world innovation momentum. Find out more: https://lnkd.in/ej-CtDH #STEM #Innovation #UKEconomy #InterestRates #R&D #Engineering #TechUK #MonetaryPolicy #Investment #FutureOfWork

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🚀 Exciting milestone for Agile Kinetic and our flagship platform MoveLab® Our latest validation study, completed in collaboration with Cardiff University / Prifysgol Caerdydd and funded through the Innovate UK Advancing Precision Medicine programme, has just been published in #Sensors Journal. 📄 The study demonstrates that MoveLab®, using only a smartphone, can provide valid and reliable measures of: - Spatiotemporal gait parameters (STPs) - Timed-Up-and-Go (TUG) - 30-second Sit-to-Stand (STS) ✅ Results show moderate-to-good agreement with gold-standard 3D motion capture and excellent reliability for clinical functional assessments. A huge thank you to our academic partners at Cardiff University and the team at Agile Kinetic Limited who contributed to this work. 🔗 Full open-access article here: https://lnkd.in/eq7WDeAQ

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Does anyone else think the DeepMind / UK Gov't news is hot air? It's easy to read things like "Fusion Energy" and "Automated Lab" and get excited. The core issue for operators is that these announcements are usually long on aspiration and short on a viable roadmap for the businesses that actually drive the economy: SMEs and the mid-market. Vague slogans, when what we need are clear signals and practical steps. There is one point of actual risk I picked out in the news, though: Data Sovereignty Debt. DeepMind is offering its immense models and priority access. Great. BUT... Doesn't that create a conflict?? UK Gov't will be dependent on a massive, US-owned entity. It promises digital independence while relying on a foreign platform to deliver it. The deal is thin on the practical, secure mechanisms for British firms to compete without giving up crucial IP or becoming overly reliant on one provider. Fundamentally, this is a high-profile move that is great for global standing, but it doesn't solve your Friday problem. I’m struggling to see how this deal offers a tangible, low-cost path for a £50m turnover business to immediately defend its margins. Unless the promised government efficiency cuts through bureaucracy for us, it's just noise. What's the one hard, practical measure they should have announced for UK SMEs to make this feel real? #aiadoption #smetech

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⏮️ Last week £182m was announced across 13 UK venture rounds Some highlights from the Soapbox platform 💻 and newsletter 🗞️ include... Spectral Compute secured a £4.5m seed round led by Costanoa Ventures to help companies run Nvidia-based code on alternative chips, avoiding hardware backlogs and lock-ins. Adclear raised an oversubscribed £2m seed round led by Outward VC. The platform is used by top finance brands and banks to deliver compliance feedback on social and marketing content. Limetrack landed £1.3m from Innovate UK and various angels to scale its IoT-enabled “SMART” bin that automatically weighs and reports commercial food waste. Aloudable secured £270k pre-seed led by SFC Capital to authenticate its text-to-conversation tool for businesses to launch pro podcasts with AI. AI Score launches from GALLOS Technologies venture studio with a £750k pre-seed to help organisations govern AI systems safely and responsibly.

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If you want to work in a Founder’s Office, stop thinking like a specialist. Start thinking like an octopus. An octopus doesn’t wait for instructions. Its eyes scan the horizon—what’s coming next. Its arms explore the present—what’s breaking, what’s working, what needs fixing now. That’s the job. In a Founder’s Office, you are not hired for one function. You’re hired to sense, connect, and adapt. One day you’re sitting in on a strategy discussion. The next, you’re fixing an execution gap. Then you’re talking to customers, shaping a deck, or unblocking a team. The best Founder’s Office professionals don’t ask: “Is this my role?” They ask: “What does the business need right now?” If you want to walk this path: • Build range, not titles • Develop curiosity, not just competence • Take ownership before being asked • Learn to zoom out and dive deep Founders don’t need more arms. They need intelligent, adaptive ones. Be the octopus. #FoundersOffice #StartupCareers #YoungProfessionals #CareerAdvice #LeadershipInTheMaking #WorkWithFounders #EarlyCareer #LearningByDoing

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Great compilation by Taos of the key players investing in the consumer space. With evolving consumer behaviour, rapid tech advancements, and the democratisation of upskilling opportunities, the consumer landscape has never been more exciting. It’s so incredibly important to think about where investment flows in the very category that informs how we eat, sleep, think and beyond - touching every aspect of our day to day lives. Below are a lot of the players aiding its growth strategically.

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With a confusing two tier funding market - AI hyped (mostly), everything else normal (kind of) - here's what I'm excited about at Playfair 📽 Hardware and difficult to build stuff - things like verticalised robotics & novel manufacturing processes where tech meets proper, manual work 🤖 Regulated industries - regulatory approval risks are now, if you get it right, moats and buyer credibility that shrinks your competitor pool 🤏 Companies using AI where if you scratched the word 'AI' from the deck you've still got a clear problem & solution with a 10 year+ vision 👀 Thanks Seb Johnson 📊at ETS Live for the great conversation Link to the full episode in the comments 👇 #Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

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