Octopus puts £2M into UltraSoC Technologies

UK venture capital firm Octopus has invested £2 million in UltraSoC Technologies Ltd, a specialist in embedded systems for use in a wide range of automotive and consumer products, including mobile phones.

UltraSoC is developing UltraDebug, for debugging the application software that provides the functionality and performance in modern electronic systems. As electronic products get smaller and have more functionality, carrying out this debugging becomes more difficult and current technology is often no longer good enough.

UltraSoC was founded in 2006 by Karl Heeks and Klaus McDonald-Maier, and spun out of the universities of Kent and Essex in 2008. The core technology received around £2 million in funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council followed by several proof-of-concept awards. In 2009 UltraSoC successfully closed a seed funding round of £400,000 from the South East Seed Fund and Iceni Seedcorn Fund, enabling it to open an office in Cambridge and progress the research work into a technology demonstrator.

The investment provided by Octopus will help develop the technology platform to a licensable product. This will involve the expansion of the technical and marketing capability in Cambridge.

Luke Hakes from Octopus said, “UltraSoC epitomises the type of early-stage business we are looking to partner with at Octopus. The core team and its advisory board are of an exceptional standard and they have the drive and ambition we search for in our own staff.”