Five Killer50 companies acquired and 30 others raise a combined $1.9bn in 2024

26 Nov, 2024
Newsdesk
2024 has proved a fruitful fundraising year for Business Weekly’s Killer50 Technology and Life Science companies.
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Ten of the 50 Cambridge technology elite and 20 of the 50 life science companies have raised growth capital as they seek to scale globally via increased recruitment, establishing new global facilities or, in the case of the biotechs, advancing clinical trials.

Five of our major Killer50 companies have been acquired, four by US buyers – Darktrace, Endomag, Featurespace and IQGeo.

The Killer50 life science companies have raised a combined $1.15 billion with Bicycle Therapeutics’ PIPE raise accounting for almost half of that figure. Other major raises recently include Nuclera closing a $75m Series C round, Constructive Bio securing $58m in the first close of its Series A, Healx winning $47m Series C funding and Cerevance a $47m extension to its Series B. Two significant 2024 seed rounds featured ExpressionEdits ($13m) and Shift Bioscience ($16m).

The Killer50 Technology companies have raised a combined $754m to date this year with the largest hauls achieved by Quantinuum ($300m) and Raspberry Pi ($225m) via a London IPO in June. Funding rounds in Cambridge Mechatronics Ltd ($40m), Echion Technologies ($37.8m), Luminance ($40m) and Riverlane ($75m) were other significant completions.

The most recent raise has seen Cambridge fabless semiconductor company Forefront RF unveil a £16 million Series A. Tech entrepreneur Phil O’Donovan, chair of the company, is predicting that the young business can blaze a similar trail to greatness as his former game-changing enterprise Cambridge Silicon Radio.

The Killer50: Technology companies

1Spatial 
42 Technology 
Advanced Infrastructure

Arm
  
AVEVA (Schneider Electric)
Bango
Cambridge Consultants
Cambridge GaN Devices 
Cambridge Intelligence
Cambridge Mechatronics  
Darktrace  
Domino Printing  
Echion Technologies  
Featurespace  
FlexEnable  
Flusso  
FocalPoint  
Forefront RF  
Frontier Developments  
Gearset  
Intellegens
IQGeo
Jagex
Johnson Matthey
Levidian
lowRISC CIC
Luminance
Marshall Group
Monumo
Nu Quantum
Nyobolt
Paragraf
Porotech
PragmatIC
Quantinuum
Raspberry Pi
Redgate
Riverlane
Secondmind
Sepura
Speechmatics
Superdielectrics
Thermoteknix Systems
Trustonic
TTP
VividQ
VNC Automotive
Wave Photonics
Xaar
Xampla

The Killer50: Life Science companies

4basebio
Abcam
Alchemab Therapeutics
Altos Labs
Apollo Therapeutics
Artios Pharma
Astex Pharmaceuticals
AstraZeneca
Bicycle Therapeutics
Biofidelity
BIOS Health
bit.bio
Broken String Biosciences
CellCentric
Cellular Origins
Cerevance
CMR Surgical
CN Bio
Constructive Bio
Cresset Group
CS Genetics
DNA Ascendancy
Domainex
Dunad Therapeutics
Endomag
Epitopea
ExpressionEdits
Healx
Lightcast Discovery
LoQus23 Therapeutics
Lucida Medical
Mestag Therapeutics
Microbiotica
Mission Therapeutics
Mosaic Therapeutics
Nuclera
Nxera Pharma
OutSee Limited
Owlstone Medical
PhoreMost
Quotient Therapeutics
Qureight
RxCelerate
Sano Genetics
Shift Bioscience
Sphere Fluidics
SPT Labtech
STORM Therapeutics
T-Therapeutics
ViaNautis Bio