Manchester-based funding agency EHE Ventures invested over £1.1million into seven early-stage, AI-first UK startups. The offers had been made by way of its just lately launched (S)EIS AI Development Fund, which goals to speculate as much as £15million in early-stage UK startups over the subsequent three years.

The fund combines capital with operational and technical help from EHE’s in-house enterprise studio. The corporate is positioning itself as one of many UK’s most lively backers of AI-driven startups which can be targeted on fixing real-world issues throughout sectors together with well being, finance, agriculture, publishing, and shopper expertise.

A concentrate on utilized AI

EHE Ventures acknowledged its technique is to again sensible and scalable purposes of synthetic intelligence somewhat than speculative ventures. The fund targets pre-seed to Sequence A startups which can be both AI-first or AI-enabled, with a concentrate on high-impact verticals similar to healthcare, monetary inclusion, digital infrastructure, and local weather resilience.

“AI is remodeling how we work, diagnose, farm, borrow, and devour, and we’re not right here for the hype. We’re right here to again sensible, scalable purposes of AI that truly make life higher,” stated Neil Vose, chief government officer of EHE Enterprise Studio. “What makes us completely different is that we don’t simply make investments. Our enterprise studio mannequin means we’re within the trenches with founders, serving to form product, construct tech, and get to market quicker. It’s high-conviction, hands-on investing.”

Andy Grove, chairman of EHE Group, additionally added: “From day one, we promised to again founders constructing sensible, transformative AI. With over £1.1million already deployed into seven high-potential startups, we’re making good on that promise. This early momentum exhibits that our mannequin works and that our fund isn’t simply lively, it’s efficient.”

The portfolio firms

The seven firms receiving the preliminary funding cowl a various vary of industries:

• Fintech and Insurtech: The cohort contains ‘Good With‘, a female-founded fintech platform utilizing AI and behavioural science to enhance credit score decision-making for underserved debtors. Additionally within the portfolio is ‘Peppercorn AI‘, an insurtech startup that makes use of LLM-powered digital assistants to streamline onboarding, claims, and customer support for the insurance coverage sector. ‘Scooch‘, a direct-to-consumer pet well being platform that mixes AI with embedded insurance coverage and personalised care, additionally acquired funding.
• Well being and Medtech: ‘Highlight Pathology‘, a medtech innovator, is making use of pc imaginative and prescient to hurry up the prognosis of blood most cancers.
• AgriTech and ClimateTech: ‘Fotenix‘, a precision agritech firm, makes use of digital twins and spectral imaging to detect crop ailments weeks sooner than standard strategies. ‘NeuWave Applied sciences‘, an ocean intelligence startup, is tackling inaccurate wave forecasts, a pricey concern for the offshore trade.
• MarTech: ‘SUBJCT‘, a advertising and marketing expertise startup, makes use of AI-powered content material tagging to assist publishers improve engagement and enhance search engine optimisation by way of semantic linking

With extra offers within the pipeline, the EHE Ventures (S)EIS AI Development Fund expects to deploy as much as £5million by the tip of 2025. “We consider the North of England can prepared the ground in accountable, utilized AI – and these seven firms are only the start,” Vose additionally added.