Founders Factory

Startup Bulletin #60 is here. Featuring insights from our founders, operators and partners across the FF network. Inside this edition: - Transforming Cardiology from Reactive Treatment to Preventative Care - Meet Rio Tinto Mining Tech Cohort 4 - Rainstick Founder Darryl Lyons: How Ancient Knowledge Sparked a DeepTech Breakthrough - Download the new Tech Nation Scale-Up Report - Designing Emissions Out Of Operations - Founders Factory Head of Talent, Raluca Ciobancan on Hiring for Drive, Not Domain Expertise - Raise Highlight: Alomana - Partnership: Armada Technologies to retrofit TUI Cruises GmbH - Events: Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC), Hitachi Construction Machinery Pitch Day - Job-openings henry lane fox | George Northcott | Brent Hoberman | Damian Routley | Olivia Brooks | David Hickson | Lee Bernasconi | Farah Kanji | Claire Morris | Frank Webster | Kelvin Degbotse | Laura Moross | Sahil Sachdev | Bianca F. | Liam Nolan | Jacob George | Simon Wheeldon | Jack Howell | Tamryn Barker | Charlotta Kemp | Rohan Silva | Jack Kennedy | Ed Harding | Olly Betts | Alex Daish | Oisin Teevan | Laura Moross | Emma Wolfin | Edoardo Gentili | Alberto W. Mucci | Conny Reh #StartUpBulletin #VentureBuilding

🚀 Announcing Rio Tinto Mining Tech Accelerator Cohort 4. These six new mining tech startups will be tackling the unprecedented demand for iron ore, copper, lithium and critical minerals. The cohort will test, pilot and commercialise deeptech powering efficiency. Leveraging AI, advanced chemistry and spatial data to make exploration faster, processing cleaner, and recovery more economical. Selected from 500+ applications, the cohort is built on world-class technical talent from Cambridge, Stanford, Harvard Business School, McGill and the University of Calgary. The new startups and founders are:  🔷Chemshift Technologies Inc. (Calgary, CA): Low-cost lithium refining to transform the North American value chain. Founders: Drew Moxon 🔷 Foresight Spatial Labs (Ottawa, CA): Building the world’s most advanced Spatial SDK for Engineering and Physical AI. Founders: Julian Ramirez Ruiseco, Aevyrie Roessler  🔷Supra Elemental Recovery (Austin, US): Supramolecular receptor platform turning waste streams into high-purity critical minerals. Founders: Katie Ullmann Durham, Jordan Sessler  🔷 Material Difference (Cambridge, UK): Explainable AI as an unfair advantage in orebody knowledge.  Founders: Gabriel Yoong, Luke Cullen  🔷 VOLUNA (Boston, US): Autonomous geochemical data collection providing faster, more accurate subsurface mineral mapping. Founders: Alexander Strange , Aaron Olson, Elias P. Fernandini  🔷 Watergenics (Berlin, DE): AI-driven, real-time water quality monitoring for water-intensive mining processes. Founders: Dr. Liviu Mantescu The Mining Tech Accelerator’s global portfolio has now raised $120M in follow-on funding, including Hades Mining (€15M Seed), Spoor (€8M Series A) and Vycarb ($5M Seed), with three startups now entering deployments in Western Australia. 🗞️ Read more about the new cohort in Metal Tech News: https://lnkd.in/eCM_Un3e Tamryn Barker | Charlotta Kemp | Rohan Silva | henry lane fox | George Northcott | Lee Bernasconi | Jack Kennedy | Olivia Brooks | Pekka Santasalo | Dan Walker | Edwin Cheang | Simon Trott | | James Yuen | Simon Tarmo | Joanne Lim | Linda Dawson | Ivana Deng | Les Delaforce | Nathan Micallef #MiningTech #CriticalMinerals #DeepTech #AI #EnergyTransition #Innovation

Most early-stage founders make the same hiring mistake, they optimise for domain expertise over drive. In the first from her series on The New Hiring Playbook, Head of Talent at Founders Factory, Raluca Ciobancan explains that the safe hire, the one with the extensive CV, familiar logos, decades in-sector, can be the wrong choice at zero-to-one. In early-stage startups, scrappiness, adaptability and intrinsic motivation consistently outperform industry tenure. Read to find out: ➡️ Why the fastest-scaling companies are hiring for motivation over credentials ➡️ The 4-part framework we use to assess founder-grade talent (starting with unfair advantage, not job titles) ➡️ Practical ways to apply this to your first five hires: real work tests, structured references, and hiring for complementary pairs 📌 The New Talent Playbook, Part 1: Hire for Drive, Not Domain Expertise Read it on the Founders Factory blog: https://lnkd.in/eRh4GsFq henry lane fox | George Northcott | Damian Routley | David Hickson | Lee Bernasconi | Farah Kanji | Claire Morris | Frank Webster | Kelvin Degbotse | Sahil Sachdev | Bianca F. | Liam Nolan | Jacob George | Jack Howell | Ed Harding | Olly Betts| Olivia Brooks | Emma Wolfin #Startups #Hiring #Talent #Founders #Leadership #VentureBuilding #Recruitment

🚀 Investing in Venga, alongside Pico Group, to back the platform reimagining how communities gather, host and monetise real-world experiences. Despite living online, most events are still run through a patchwork of tools across WhatsApp, spreadsheets, ticket links, manual transfers and DMs. Hosting becomes operationally heavy, monetisation is limited, and scaling from intimate gatherings to larger ticketed events is painful. Venga is building the operating system for gathering – a vertically integrated toolset that brings guest management, payments, ticketing, subscriptions, communication and real-time logistics into one seamless experience designed for hosts. Helping organisers turn one-off moments into repeatable, sustainable event-driven businesses. Read the full Investing in Venga article 👉https://lnkd.in/eKf7B86m Damian Routley | Olivia Brooks | Lee Bernasconi | Edoardo Gentili | Lucas von Hertzen | Erik Nygren | Jonas von Hertzen | Liam Nolan | Kelvin Degbotse | Claire Morris | Ed Harding #Startups #ConsumerTech #Marketplace #Payments #Communities #Experiential

Sifted has ranked Founders Factory #3 in its 2026 UK & Ireland Investor Ranking, recognising the investors backing the region’s fastest-growing companies. The ranking highlights companies including Scan.com, Fluidstack, Pinwheel, Tembo, and Xapien as part of the broader success stories behind the data - a reminder that the real credit sits with the founders and teams building industry-defining companies. The full rankings can be found here: https://lnkd.in/eWMKSaqt henry lane fox | George Northcott | Brent Hoberman | Damian Routley | David Hickson | Lee Bernasconi | Farah Kanji | Raluca Ciobancan | Claire Morris | Frank Webster | Kelvin Degbotse | Laura Moross | Sahil Sachdev | Bianca F. | Liam Nolan | Jacob George | Simon Wheeldon |Jack Howell | Jack Kennedy | Ed Harding | Olly Betts | Alex Daish | Olivia Brooks | Emma Wolfin | Edoardo Gentili #Startups #VentureCapital #Sifted100

🚜🌏 Meet the winners of the LANDCROS Innovation Studios Mining Challenge. Together with Hitachi Construction Machinery, we’ve launched the LANDCROS Innovation Studios Mining Challenge to identify world-leading startups building breakthrough mining technologies across three themes:  🔷Smarter Machines: Automation, operator intelligence, energy efficiency 🔷Smarter Mine Sites: Connected operations, real-time data, decision layers 🔷Low Impact & Sustainable Mining: water, emissions, circularity and reduced footprint This challenge gives startups direct access to Hitachi Construction Machinery’s industry expertise and pilot opportunities, alongside Founders Factory’s global ecosystem of investors and commercial partners. This round’s winners are: ➡️ RIGID ROBOTICS: real-time precision insights connecting equipment + frontline workers ➡️ Dig Robotics: Computer vision and AI for optimising excavation intelligence ➡️ FOSSA Systems: low-power, secure, accessible IoT + space tech for connected fleets and deep pits beyond terrestrial coverage ➡️ Green Edge Computing Corp: rugged, ultra-compact & energy-efficient edge computing for remote operational environments ➡️ IntelliSense.io: scientific-AI process optimisation delivering measurable net metal recovery gains ➡️ NTWIST: a geometallurgy + AI-powered decision layer across mining operations ➡️ Strayos: visual AI across the mine-to-mill value chain ➡️ Weeefiner: next-gen water treatment recovering dissolved copper + critical metals from process and wastewater ➡️ Clear Carbon: mining-grade emissions intelligence for verified reporting and reduction ➡️ COSMOS Save Energy: advanced analytics and optimisation to cut diesel use in ultra-class haul trucks 📍 Next up the startups will pitch live in Brisbane on 16 April to an international panel of Hitachi Construction Machinery global executives, investors and Tier-1 mining leaders. The day will culminate in the announcement of three Grand Winners across the strategic themes. George Northcott I henry lane fox I Jack Kennedy I Tamryn Barker I Lee Bernasconi | Olivia Brooks | Kaoru Kobayashi I Kenichi Moriwaki, Ph.D. I Stephen Daff I Andrew Martin I Sean Ryan I Dan Bongers I Trevor Griffiths I Wenco International Mining Systems| Mehran Motamed | Ryan Hawes I Noam Rotem I Julian Fernandez I Vicente González Negro I Jeff MacMillan I Sam G. Bose I Sunil Vedula I Chowdary Meenavilli | Sriraj Meenavilli I Ravi Sahu I Mikko Hänninen I Elmeri Lahtinen I Hemal Modi I Geoffroy (Geff) Lang #MiningTech #Automation #AI #Sustainability #Decarbonisation #IndustrialInnovation

Launching the latest business from our Venture Studio – Malcolm. Insurers want to tap into the massive distribution potential of AI, but they cannot safely connect existing pricing model APIs directly to consumer LLMs without risking regulatory failure. In using Malcolm, insurers are able to deliver their products where their customers want them, compliantly, to unlock the next generation of products, information, and buying experiences. Malcolm modus operandi: ➡️ Universal agent integration: seamlessly handles intent from any major AI runtime (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) or custom Insurtech co-pilots. ➡️ Routing engine: intelligently maps unstructured AI requests into strict JSON payloads, routing them to the exact legacy APIs required for Car, Home, Travel, or SME insurance. ➡️Compliance pipeline: a built-in regulatory safety net featuring an immutable audit ledger, behavioural analysis, and hard-coded product guardrails to guarantee fair value and prevent silent mis-selling. ➡️ Plug-and-play tooling: Malcolm provides a set of off-the-shelf tools and components that allow you to design your own AI experiences and control the user journey. Read more about our new studio venture and founder Tim Graham: https://lnkd.in/eJ8KfgYm henry lane fox | George Northcott | Damian Routley | David Hickson | Lee Bernasconi | Raluca Ciobancan | Claire Morris | Frank Webster | Kelvin Degbotse | Laura Moross | Sahil Sachdev | Bianca F. | Liam Nolan | Jacob George | Simon Wheeldon | Jack Howell | Farah Kanji #Startups #Insurtech #AgenticAI #AIAgents

🚀 Congratulations to Alomana on a €4M funding round to accelerate Alo, its AI operating layer that goes beyond simple assistance, focused on enterprise execution. The round is led by CDP Venture Capital SGR (Corporate Partners I – ServiceTech), with participation from Italia Venture I – Fondo Imprese Sud, Kairos Ventures (ESG One), Gresilent Holdings, Italian Angels for Growth (IAG) and Club degli Investitori. Alomana deploys a universal intelligence layer working across data, documents and applications, elevating AI from helpful chatbot to repeatable execution. Over the past year, Alo has been implemented across finance, manufacturing and pharma, supporting workflows like risk and security, financial controls, operational automation and advanced analytics, delivering real operational gains. Alomana joined the Founders Factory and Mediobanca MBSpeedUp Accelerator in 2024, and it’s been exciting to watch the team build toward production-grade enterprise deployments. Congrats to Giuseppe Ettorre, Daniele Ligorio and team. Damian Routley | Nick le Fevre | Elena Vittone | Olly Betts | Emma Wolfin | Edoardo Gentili | Alberto W. Mucci | Andrea Guzzoni  | Laura Moross | Maria Carla Genovesi #VentureCapital #EnterpriseAI #AIAgent

🎥 Last month we closed out our Hospital to Community Accelerator, delivered in partnership with Innovate UK, with a Demo Day focused on moving care closer to patients and communities. Over 12 weeks, founders worked alongside our partners and specialists to pressure-test early to mid-stage solutions built for real-world implementation. The energy in the room reflected a shared reality across the wider system that shifting care into the community requires tools that improve access, reduce burden on clinicians, and deliver measurable outcomes. Our cohort presented across diagnostics, triage, rehabilitation and care coordination: - Sensore: automated pressure ulcer prevention mapping - Papcup: non-invasive cervical screening - Arcus Dental: digital dental check-ups from home - Punto Health: AI-powered dementia management platform - Auracare: AI triage for primary care providers - Dotplot: early breast cancer detection from home - Myonerv: wearable device to monitor and treat stroke-induced paralysis - Circe: clinical group therapy platform for women - William Oak Diagnostics: integrated diagnostics for nutritional deficiencies - Lifeyear: a modern operating system for cardiac care Huge thanks to everyone who joined, supported, and helped push these solutions closer to deployment. Watch the recap video below 👇 Olivia Brooks | Nick le Fevre | Hannah Thomas | Samana Brannigan | David Cole, MBA | Damian Routley | David Hickson | Lee Bernasconi | Liam Nolan | Jacob George | Jack Howell | Claire Morris | Ed Harding | Kelvin Degbotse | Emma Wolfin | Bianca F. | Farah Kanji | Raluca Ciobancan #HealthTech #NHS #CommunityCare #DigitalHealth #Innovation #Startups #UKRI

🌧️⚡️ Darryl Lyons built agtech startup Rainstick by combining traditional Aboriginal knowledge with low-input deeptech. Darryl shares the journey behind the technology, as well as why low marginal cost matters for scaling deeptech, and how Rainstick found unexpected traction through pilots beyond agriculture. Founded by Darryl and Co-Founder Mic Black, part of our Mining Tech Cohort 2 with Rio Tinto, Rainstick translates storm effects into controlled electric fields and frequencies to help seeds establish and perform in harsher conditions. Read the full article 👉 https://lnkd.in/eVn39MYw Tamryn Barker | Charlotta Kemp | Rohan Silva | henry lane fox | George Northcott | Damian Routley | David Hickson | Lee Bernasconi | Jack Kennedy | Olivia Brooks | Laura Moross | Pekka Santasalo | Dan Walker | Edwin Cheang | Simon Trott | Liam Nolan | Kelvin Degbotse #ClimateTech #AgTech #DeepTech #NatureTech