Weekly Soak 🧼 13 Jan 2025

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

Jesse Heasman
January 13, 2025

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 golden source of their fundraise online in a simple and digestible format for onward sharing.

And allows the rest of us - whether we’re future investors, hires or clients - to catch-up on the latest venture stories in a simple feed (and newsletter) without the usual clickbait or paywall.

2025 is off to a flyer with over £360m of funding announced last week, largely thanks to Verdiva Bio’s whopping £330m+ Series A round for its Ozempic challenger. All 8 rounds split out by deal size below ⤵️

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<£0.5m

Mulder raises £500,000 in a pre-seed led by SFC Capital to revolutionise medical device traceability
⚙️ Medical
📈 Pre-seed
🤝 SFC Capital; Innovate UK
🔗 Mulder

£0.5 ➡️ 1m

RoboK secures £1m from UKRI to advance AI safety in UK ports and warehouses
⚙️ Logistics
📈 State funding
🤝 Innovate UK
🔗 RoboK

£1 ➡️ 2m

VitVio raises £1.5m pre-seed led by LDV Capital to revolutionise operating rooms with AI-powered efficiency
⚙️ Medical
📈 Pre-seed
🤝 LDV Capital; Bek Ventures; Tiny Supercomputer Investment Company; Angels
🔗 VitVio

£2 ➡️ 5m

Altilium raises £4m led by Marubeni to build the UK's largest EV battery recycling plant
⚙️ Batteries
📈 Series B
🤝 Marubeni Corporation
🔗 Altilium

Renais, founded by Emma Watson, raises £5m led by InvestBev to fuel global expansion of its premium gin brand
⚙️ Food & beverage
📈 Funding
🤝 InvestBev; Jean-Sébastien Robicquet
🔗 Renais

£5 ➡️ 10m

Beams raises £7m Series A led by ETF Partners to streamline home renovations with proprietary pricing software
⚙️ Construction
📈 Series A
🤝 ETF Partners; Giant Ventures; Firstminute Capital; Borusan Ventures
🔗 Beams

OXcan raises £9m Series A led by We Venture Capital and Cross-Border Impact Ventures to revolutionise early lung cancer detection
⚙️ Medical
📈 Series A
🤝 We Venture Capital; Cross-Border Impact Ventures; Eka Ventures; Civilization Ventures; DigitalDx Ventures; Aurelium Ventures; OKG Capital
🔗 OXcan

>£100m

Verdiva Bio secures £333.5m Series A led by Forbion and General Atlantic to develop next-gen weight loss therapies
⚙️ Biotechnology
📈 Series A
🤝 Forbion; General Atlantic
🔗 Verdiva Bio

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