Every day, Global University Venturing rounds up the smaller investments from across the university innovation ecosystem in its deal net.
Zegami, a UK-based data structuring platform developer exploiting University of Oxford research, has procured £1.3m ($1.6m) in an RT Capital Management-led round featuring the university’s tech transfer office Oxford University Innovation and venture fund Oxford Sciences Innovation, as well as Oxford Technology and Innovations EIS Fund. Spun out in 2016, Zegami is working on a data analytics and visualisation platform to help organisations structure large quantities of information in a form comprehensible to the human eye. The capital will fund continued product development, while also driving Zegami’s efforts to increase its profile through marketing and commercial partnerships. Zegami has now raised $5m in funding altogether, including $3m from a 2017 round led by OSI that featured IP Group-owned fund management unit Parkwalk Advisors, after both had featured in a February 2016 round of undisclosed size, with Parkwalk investing through University of Oxford Innovation Fund II.
3YourMind, a Germany-based developer of machine learning middleware for additive manufacturing applications spun out of Technical University of Munich (TUM), has obtained €1.3m ($1.5m) in funding from the EU-run European Regional Development Fund and state-owned business development bank Investitionsbank Berlin’s Research, Innovation and Technology Promotion Program. Founded in 2014, 3YourMind develops machine learning-equipped software tools which enable industry to easily manage the manufacturing of 3D-printed goods. The funding will allow the spinout to begin adding artificial neural networks to its products. 3YourMind previously received $12m in a 2017 series A round led by TUM’s investment affiliate, Unternehmertum Venture Capital Partners, and backed by German government-owned venture fund Coparion that featured Germany’s development bank KfW, the EU-owned European Investment Fund, machine tools provider Trumpf’s corporate venturing arm Trumpf Venture and AM Ventures, a VC affiliate of industrial 3D printed materials provider Eos which also led a seed round of undisclosed size for 3YourMind in 2015.
