Cambridge Innovation Capital makes its first moves

Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC) is backing three companies with a total of £2.76m ($4.6m). The investments are the first of CIC’s current £50m ($85.5m) fund, which was set up with the support of and is affiliated with Cambridge University.

Jukedeck, a Cambridge University spin-out, has secured £100,000 ($167,000). The money is a co-investment with Cambridge Enterprise, the university’s technology transfer office, and the university’s EIS fund managed by Parkwalk Advisors, which together provided £400,000 ($668,000) in seed funding. The company’s software allows users to generate unique, royalty-free music with simple online tools. It has not yet launched the product to the public.

Origami Energy, an energy management developer, secured £1.25m ($2m). Origami’s software manages electricity grids by making sure demand and storage always correlate across physical sites.

Cambridge Imaging Systems, which has created a cloud-based service to let video owners archive, deliver and bill for their content, has secured the largest chunk of the three at £1.5m ($2.5m). The company’s software is used by more than 60 universities, as well as organisations such as the BBC, the British Library and the UK Ministry of Defense.

Peter Keen, chief executive at CIC, said: “I am delighted to announce CIC’s first investments from our new fund. The companies provide an excellent snapshot of the breadth of activity and quality of entrepreneurs in the Cambridge Cluster. We look forward to working with these teams and many others as the fund continues to invest in ambitious entrepreneurs with promising technologies in and around our cluster.”