Project Ventures has launched its debut £5 million fund, backing pre-seed and seed-stage startups at the intersection of Deep Tech and AI. The firm describes it as the first independent, alumni-powered VC fund dedicated to the Imperial College London startup ecosystem, writing cheques of between £100,000 and £300,000. More than 80% of the fund's limited partners are Imperial alumni, reflecting a community-driven model, and three investments have already been completed.
Backing founders applying frontier science, engineering and AI, the investment focus centres on intelligent systems that bridge the digital and physical worlds, across sectors including robotics, healthcare, climate, energy and advanced manufacturing. The firm is led by Shahryar Barati, Founder and Managing Partner and a three-time Imperial alumnus. Its alumni-powered model mirrors more established alumni-backed venture networks commonly seen across the US, which Project Ventures says provides differentiated access to high-quality deal flow and early visibility into founders ahead of the wider market.
Three companies have been backed to date. Tewke is an intelligent home operating system enabling home energy optimisation and decentralised energy infrastructure. NexusAM is a real-time AI-powered quality assurance platform for metal 3D printing that detects manufacturing defects during production, while Neubond is a wearable neurotech platform delivering personalised, closed-loop therapy for stroke rehabilitation and recovery.
Barati's background spans experience as a startup operator, venture investing and institutional asset management, including building and running an automated VC fund. Supporting him is a team of experienced Venture Partners based across London and the Bay Area, alongside a wider network of domain experts, bringing founder, operator and technical expertise spanning deal sourcing, technical due diligence, portfolio support and international networks.
A final close is targeted by summer 2027, with the firm continuing to build its pipeline of Imperial-linked startups. Over time, Project Ventures sees potential to extend its alumni-powered model to other leading technical university ecosystems across Europe.
It's a proud moment to officially launch our debut fund which has the Imperial ecosystem at its heart. Imperial has been an integral part of my own journey and I'm excited to establish the alumni-backed venture model used to great success across leading US universities within the Imperial community. This is such an exciting moment for deep tech, with AI accelerating development cycles that historically took years while bringing an entirely new intelligence layer into the physical world. Imperial's depth across science, engineering and medicine makes it an exceptional ecosystem from which to find and back companies at that intersection, and our deep roots across the Imperial community put us in a particularly strong position to support these pioneering businesses from an early stage.
We've hired from Imperial's impressive pool of graduate and PhD talent to fill a wide range of positions, from interns to technical leads as we've grown Tewke, so partnering with an Imperial-rooted VC felt like a natural next step. While it's relatively common to see alumni-backed VCs in the US, it's almost unheard of in the UK. For us, it's exciting to be backed by a fund that's building that exact model here.
For us, it is never only about the capital. We wanted people around the company who understood where Neubond came from, what we are trying to build, and who could genuinely help us along the journey. Building a medtech university spin-out comes with a very specific set of challenges. Alongside building the technology and the business, there is IP, clinical evidence, regulation, technology transfer and a long scientific development journey behind the company. Having investors who understand those additional layers, and what it takes to translate scientific innovation into a commercially successful medical technology, is therefore very important to us.
As a deep tech and AI company ourselves, it was great to find an early-stage VC fund with such a strong thesis match. The ability of Project Ventures to move quickly from first conversations through to DD and then to a final decision aligned with the speed we work at as a company and the type of investors we want to align with. We were also thoroughly impressed with their venture partner system and ability to bring in expertise when assessing deals.
