Cambridge spinout Paragraf has been backed by the university's commercialisation arm Cambridge Enterprise in its bid to deliver a commercial graphene production process.
Paragraf, a UK-based graphene technology spinout from University of Cambridge, closed a £2.9m ($4m) seed round yesterday led by the university’s commercialisation arm, Cambridge Enterprise.
Parkwalk Advisors, the spinout-focused fund manager owned by commercialisation firm IP Group, also provided funding, as did Amadeus Capital Partners, IQ Capital Partners and unspecified angel investors.
The spinout previously raised an initial $3.6m tranche from Cambridge Enterprise and Parkwalk Advisors in October 2017.
Paragraf has designed a manufacturing process to produce commercial quantities of two-dimensional materials such as graphene, a carbon structure that exhibits properties including flexibility, strength and energy conduciveness.
Graphene production has so far failed to reach scale without encountering problems such as lack of uniformity and material contamination.
Paragraf’s process will help create enhanced graphene-based devices, such as faster transistors, more responsive sensors or clean energy generator components. It has already produced graphene optimised for “very sensitive” detectors and technologies such as LEDs.
The approach commercialises intellectual property from a group led by co-founder Colin Humphreys in Cambridge’s Centre for Gallium Nitride in the Department of Materials Science.
Humphreys, who now acts as chairman of Paragraf, said: “Graphene has been called the new wonder material, because of its potential to transform a range of industries such as electronics, energy and healthcare.
“However, so far, its applications have been limited because good quality graphene is only available in small flakes.”
