Investors / United Kingdom / Northern Gritstone
Northern Gritstone
Venture capital · Manchester, United Kingdom · Europe
Northern Gritstone invests in science and technology startups in the North of England, working in partnership with the universities of Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool. It also provides wrap-around support to founding teams through NG Innovation Services, including pre-seed programmes, talent, growth coaching, co-investment and business services.
Invests inHealthcare & BiotechAI & Machine Learning
In its own wordsdeep techlife sciencesuniversity spinoutsintellectual propertynorth of england
Your fit with Northern Gritstone
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See how your round matches what it backs, point by point.
Or find every investor that fitsNorthern Gritstone lists 32 checked portfolio companies on its own site and is named in 13 funding rounds, 10 of them as lead. Its most frequent entry is Seed, 62% of the companies with a known first round. Its largest themes are Healthcare & Biotech (30%), AI & Machine Learning (24%) and Industrial & Manufacturing (14%). 91% of its companies are based in United Kingdom. It invests most often alongside Deeptech Labs, Praetura Ventures and UKI2S.
Counts come from funding rounds that name Northern Gritstone, complete from mid-2025: earlier rounds appear only when they were reported later. Round amounts and full round histories are on Fundup AI.
Round figures show recent activity, not Northern Gritstone's whole history. Rounds on record name 13 companies; its own site lists 32. Funding rounds are complete from mid-2025, so counts and the yearly trend undercount a firm that invested before then. The portfolio, themes and places come from its own site and are not affected.
Entry stage
share of companies by the stage of its first roundShow as a table
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Pre-seed | 0% |
| Seed | 62% |
| Series A | 31% |
| Series B | 8% |
| Growth | 0% |
Activity by year
rounds it joined, last 10 yearsShow as a table
| Total | Rounds it led | |
|---|---|---|
| '17 | 0 | 0 |
| '18 | 0 | 0 |
| '19 | 0 | 0 |
| '20 | 0 | 0 |
| '21 | 0 | 0 |
| '22 | 0 | 0 |
| '23 | 0 | 0 |
| '24 | 0 | 0 |
| '25 | 3 | 3 |
| '26 | 10 | 7 |
Investor profile
percentile among all firmsShow as a table
| Measure | Percentile of all firms | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Portfolio size | 70th | 32 companies |
| Recent activity | 95th | 11 rounds in 12 months |
| Early stage | 76th | 62% of entries at pre-seed or seed |
| Evidence | 97th | 31% of companies confirmed by a round |
| Sector focus | 52th | 30% in its largest sector |
| Reach | 42th | 2 countries |
Investment themes
share of its checked companiesThis firmAll checked companies
Show as a table
| This firm | All checked companies | |
|---|---|---|
| Healthcare & Biotech | 30% | 15% |
| AI & Machine Learning | 24% | 18% |
| Industrial & Manufacturing | 14% | 7% |
| Cybersecurity | 10% | 4% |
| Robotics & Hardware | 6% | 1% |
| Enterprise Software | 4% | 8% |
| Food & Agriculture | 4% | 3% |
| Education | 2% | 7% |
Invests most often with
firms sharing its portfolio companiesShow as a table
| Share | |
|---|---|
| Deeptech Labs | 8 |
| Praetura Ventures | 5 |
| UKI2S | 4 |
| Empirical Ventures | 3 |
| Future Planet Capital | 3 |
| Parkwalk Advisors | 3 |
| Catapult Ventures | 2 |
| IQ Capital | 2 |
Its portfolio companies
where they are based, and what their own sites showSite status
- Site answers3197%
- No longer answers00%
- Points to another company13%
- Parked or sold domain00%
A site that stops answering three checks in a row is counted as no longer answering; that is not proof of closure. A site that points to another company is often an acquisition.
Co-investor network
who it backs companies with, and who they back togetherCompare Northern Gritstone head to head
portfolio size, rounds, entry stages, themes and the companies both backThree or more firms at once: portfolio overlap.
Recent portfolio activity
when companies last raised with Northern Gritstone| Date | Company | Stage |
|---|---|---|
| 15 Oct 2026 | Seed Led | |
| 17 Sept 2026 | Series A Led | |
| 12 Aug 2026 | Series A Led | |
| 9 Jul 2026 | Seed Led | |
| 22 Jun 2026 | Series A | |
| 21 May 2026 | Seed | |
| 14 May 2026 | Series B | |
| 12 Mar 2026 | Seed Led |
Round details for Northern Gritstone
Amounts, full round histories and every co-investor in Northern Gritstone's rounds are on Fundup AI. VCinfo covers investors and their portfolios.
Portfolio
32 companies checked against their own sites| Company | What it does | Themes | First round with it | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The company provides in silico insights for implantable devices | Healthcare & Biotech | Portfolio page | ||
| AmpliSi develops scalable, safe and sustainable synthesis for porous silicon battery anode material | EducationIndustrial & Manufacturing | Mar 2026Seed | Page + round | |
| AssetCool is building robotic systems that are transforming how the world upgrades its power lines, adding megawatts of capacity to a circuit in weeks, not years. | Robotics & HardwareIndustrial & Manufacturing | Portfolio page | ||
CybersecurityAI & Machine Learning | Portfolio page | |||
| Crucible Therapeutics develops innovative treatments that target the root causes of neurodegenerative diseases, preventing disease progression to improve patients’ lives. | Healthcare & Biotech | Portfolio page | ||
| Cytix provides software security solutions | CybersecurityEnterprise Software | Aug 2026Series A | Page + round | |
| Cytotrait focuses on the development of novel traits for food and agriculture. | AI & Machine LearningAI & Machine Learning | Mar 2026Seed | Page + round | |
| Exciting Instruments develops and provides single-molecule fluorescence technology for life science research, drug development, and clinical diagnostics | Healthcare & Biotech | Portfolio page | ||
| Floreon produces bioplastic materials from crops like corn and sugar cane as a renewable substitute for oil-based plastics. | Industrial & Manufacturing | Portfolio page | ||
| Iceotope co-designs and licenses precision liquid cooling technology to OEMs and ODMs building the next generation of AI | AI & Machine LearningHuman Resources | May 2026Series B | Page + round | |
| The company delivers improved and production-ready enzyme designs by rapidly retraining problem-specific AI models with real world data. | Healthcare & Biotech | May 2026Seed | Page + round | |
| The company develops microfluidic technology for IVF embryo culture | Healthcare & Biotech | Dec 2025Seed | Funding round | |
| Literal Labs develops and trains logic-based artificial intelligence networks | AI & Machine LearningCybersecurity | May 2025Seed | Page + round | |
| MicroLub develops protein-based technologies for replacing fats and oils in food and personal care products | Food & AgricultureHealthcare & Biotech | Portfolio page | ||
| MicroLub develops protein-based technologies for replacing fats and oils in food and personal care products. | Food & AgricultureHealthcare & Biotech | Sept 2026Series A | Funding round | |
| Mimetrik develops and sells a 3D scanner for dental use | Healthcare & Biotech | Portfolio page | ||
| Optalysys develops programmable silicon photonic Compute-in-Transit technology that enables operations to be performed directly within the data path | AI & Machine LearningCybersecurity | Jan 2026Series A | Page + round | |
| Opteran develops software that enables robots to learn and navigate in real-world environments | Robotics & HardwareAI & Machine Learning | Portfolio page | ||
| Partful provides electronic 3D parts catalogs and work instructions for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). | Industrial & Manufacturing | Portfolio page | ||
| Pencil Biosciences is developing a synthetic platform for gene editing. | Healthcare & Biotech | Portfolio page |
About this data
site last read 5 Nov 2026- Site
- northern-gritstone.com
- Last read
- 5 Nov 2026
- Watching since
- 5 Nov 2026
- Rounds since
- 28 May 2025
- Companies checked
- 32
Rates come from what VCinfo has observed since observation_start. Firms tend to remove companies that closed, so early rates understate reality. A company leaving a portfolio page does not mean it closed or exited. An unreachable site means our checks failed, nothing more.
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