Weekly Soak 🧼 12 May 2025

The definitive round-up of venture capital fundraising news | 🇬🇧 edition

Jesse Heasman
May 12, 2025

In full bloom: Gardin raises seed round to expand real-time photosynthesis sensor for precision agriculture

Welcome if you’re new to Weekly Soak by Soapbox — the newsletter that covers every funding round announced in the last 7 days.

Soapbox helps founders and companies — whatever stage, sector or surrounding hype — publish a clean, golden source of their fundraise online for onward sharing.

And allows the rest of the tech community to catch-up on the latest venture stories in a simple feed and newsletter without the usual clickbait or paywall.

Last week over £140m in funding was announced across 15 rounds. Catch up below ⤵️

<£0.5m

Zeus Sleep raises £150k seed funding from British Design Fund to combat snoring and sleep apnoea

🌎 Hampshire, United Kingdom 📈 Seed ⚙️ Health

www.soapbox.vc/feed/zeus-sleep-150k-seed

Platter lands £350k pre-seed with Startup Wise Guys and angels to digitise wholesale food trade and cut industry waste

🌎 London, United Kingdom 📈 Pre-seed ⚙️ Supply chain

www.soapbox.vc/feed/platter-350k-pre-seed

£0.5 ➡️ 1m

Cellestial Health raises £515k pre-seed round led by Zinc VC to develop astrocyte-targeting drugs for Parkinson’s

🌎 Cambridge, United Kingdom 📈 Pre-seed ⚙️ Biotechnology

www.soapbox.vc/feed/cellestial-health-515k-pre-seed

Nia raises £640k pre-seed led by LocalGlobe to launch AI engineering teammates for modern dev teams

🌎 London, United Kingdom 📈 Pre-seed ⚙️ AI

www.soapbox.vc/feed/nia-640k-pre-seed

MindSpire raises £850k pre-seed round led by SFC Capital to launch vagus nerve stimulation wearable

🌎 London, United Kingdom 📈 Pre-seed ⚙️ Health

www.soapbox.vc/feed/mindspire-850k-pre-seed

£1 ➡️ 2m

Loxa raises £1.7m seed round from angels to scale repair-first product protection platform

🌎 London, United Kingdom 📈 Seed ⚙️ Ecommerce

www.soapbox.vc/feed/loxa-2m-seed

Tended raises £2m led by Praetura Ventures to expand geofencing rail safety tech internationally

🌎 Lincoln, United Kingdom 📈 Equity ⚙️ Infrastructure

www.soapbox.vc/feed/tended-2m-equity

£2 ➡️ 5m

Gardin raises £3.4m seed round led by Navus to scale real-time photosynthesis sensor for precision agriculture

🌎 Oxford, United Kingdom 📈 Seed ⚙️ Agriculture

www.soapbox.vc/feed/gardin-3m-seed

Solena Materials raises £5m seed round from biotech investors to develop sustainable protein fibres for apparel

🌎 London, United Kingdom 📈 Seed ⚙️ Fashion

www.soapbox.vc/feed/solena-materials-5m-seed

£5 ➡️ 10m

Doubleword raises £9m Series A led by Dawn Capital to make self-hosted AI inference effortless for enterprises

🌎 London, United Kingdom 📈 Series A ⚙️ AI

www.soapbox.vc/feed/doubleword-9m-series-a

Ravio raises £9m Series A led by Spark Capital to modernise real-time compensation data

🌎 London, United Kingdom 📈 Series A ⚙️ Human resources

www.soapbox.vc/feed/ravio-9m-series-a

£10 ➡️ 20m

StackOne raises £15m Series A led by GV to build the universal integration layer for enterprise software

🌎 London, United Kingdom 📈 Series A ⚙️ Software infrastructure

www.soapbox.vc/feed/stackone-15m-series-a

Breathe raises £16m Series B led by Kinnevik to bring predictive software tools to battery development

🌎 London, United Kingdom 📈 Series B ⚙️ Batteries

www.soapbox.vc/feed/breathe-16m-series-b

£20 ➡️ 50m

Recraft raises £22.5m Series B led by Accel to deliver brand-consistent generative AI design at scale

🌎 London, United Kingdom 📈 Series B ⚙️ Content and publishing

www.soapbox.vc/feed/recraft-23m-series-b

£50 ➡️ 100m

Orca AI raises £55m Series B led by Brighton Park Capital to scale autonomous shipping platform

🌎 London, United Kingdom 📈 Series B ⚙️ Supply chain

www.soapbox.vc/feed/orca-ai-55m-series-b

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