University of Glasgow
Canvas Category Consultancy : Research : Academic
Our mission is to undertake leading-edge, internationally-competitive research while offering a challenging student-centred learning environment. Through our status as a leading international university, we aim to sustain and add value to Scottish culture and society, to the natural environment and to the national economy.
Assembly Line
Dunia Innovations scores $11.5M for its ‘self-driving lab’ to speed up discovery of new materials
Dunia Innovations, a Berlin-based deeptech startup specialising in AI-driven material discovery, has secured $11.5 million in funding co-led by French VC Elaia (which recently invested in Qantev and dottxt) and Swiss VC redalpine (which recently backed Basecamp Research and Legalfly). Other backers included the EIC, Pace Ventures, Kindred Capital, Deep Science Ventures, Anglo American, and industry expert angels.
The German startup is using AI-driven technology and its automated lab to speed up the discovery of advanced materials. The company aims to reduce the time it typically takes to develop new materials, which can often be decades. This is part of a broader focus on helping the clean energy transition. By 2050, the global market for electrochemical technologies, which play a key role in energy storage and conversion, is projected to reach $1.5 trillion. Dunia’s approach is intended to accelerate innovation in this field, contributing to the advancement of clean energy solutions.
Traditional chemical research relies on slow and inefficient “design, make, test, analyse” (DMTA) cycles. Dunia rethinks this process using advanced chemical-robotic workflows and proprietary quantum chemistry-derived material representations. These representations together with their in-house proprietary datasets give Dunia’s machine learning (ML) systems a competitive edge over other black-box ML approaches, allowing for faster material discovery.
Pioneering energy startup Clyde Hydrogen secures over £1M in pre-seed funding
A University of Glasgow start-up that is set to revolutionise the hydrogen energy sector has announced the successful closure of its pre-seed funding round totalling more than £1m in equity and grants. Clyde Hydrogen said the investment marked a significant vote of confidence in its mission to develop cutting-edge hydrogen production solutions that promise to significantly reduce carbon emissions and advance the global transition to a sustainable energy future.
The pre-seed funding will be instrumental in expanding the company’s R&D team, accelerating technology development, and forging strategic partnerships within the energy sector. Clyde Hydrogen is committed to contributing significantly to Scotland’s ambitious carbon neutrality and green hydrogen goals.
⚗️🧠 Chemify Announces $43 Million of Funding to Digitize Chemistry
Chemify, a pioneering company operating its proprietary molecular design, discovery, and chemical manufacturing technology to provide pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and industrial partners with better molecules, today announced funding of $43 million including a Series A led by Triatomic Capital, joined by new investors including Hong-Kong based Horizon Ventures, US-based Rocketship Ventures, Possible Ventures, Alix Ventures, Scotland-based Eos, and the UK Government Innovation Accelerators program. Existing investor BlueYard Capital also participated in the round.
Founded in 2019 by CEO Lee Cronin with backing from David Cleevely (co-founder of Abcam), Chemify is based on decades of chemistry research, robotics, AI, and conceptual advancements from Cronin’s Digital Chemistry Laboratory at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Professor Cronin’s pioneering research spans the digitization of chemistry including the use of artificial intelligence in chemistry to explore ‘chemical space’ - to access and create the trillions of possible combinations of natural elements. Chemify can help reduce the amount of costly and time-consuming experimentation required to discover promising new molecules, speeding up their development as products to underpin advances in medicine, farming, materials science, and green energy.