Deal of the week: Cambridge Touch Technologies

As part of a new weekly round-up, we profile our stand-out equity fundraising of the last 7 days. This week, it’s Cambridge-based Cambridge Touch Technologies.

What do they do?

Cambridge University spin-out Cambridge Touch Technologies (CTT) is working to refine 3D touch technology, and make it a standard feature on all smart devices.

Although recent first generation iterations of this technology can be found on Apple’s iPhone 6s, CTT CEO Corbin Church believes his company’s tech has “added improved performance and taken out the complexity”.

Where CTT’s tech apparently offers innovation, is that it will enable mobile devices to detect both the force and location of multi-finger inputs – without any decrease in battery life.

“The elegance of this new 3D touch technology lies in the simplicity of signal acquisition, signal processing and digital noise reduction” says Dr Arokia Nathan, co-founder of CTT, and Professor of Photonic Systems and Displays at Cambridge University. “It really opens the door for 3D touch to a new generation of applications.”

According to global information experts IHS Technology, 3D-touch enabled devices are expected to reach over 900 million units annually in 2020.

In other words: watch this space.

Key players:

1.) Corbin Church, CEO

2.) Dr Arokia Nathan, co-founder, Professor of Photonic Systems and Displays at Cambridge University

How much did they raise?

Cambridge Touch technologies secured an undisclosed £315k, as verified by our research team. This gave the spin-out a £952k post-money valuation, after it parted with a 33.1% equity stake.

Who funded?

Parkwalk Advisors

 Which companies are they up against?

Hardy & Ellis inventions – As well as being named the Duke of York Entrepreneur of the Week at the PITCH@PALACE event in Manchester back in September, H&E has also featured on BBC Click.

The Lancaster University spin-out, which has received just one £70.4k Innovate UK grant to date, has developed interactive technology that allows surfaces and objects to be turned into touch-screen interfaces.

Having recently created an interactive floor display which advertises special offers in supermarkets, the company is now in talks with retail groups in Greater Manchester.

Peratech  – Hailing from East Yorkshire, Peratech is working to engineer the ‘next generation in 3D force-sensing solutions’. A winner at the Elektra 2015 Awards, Peratech completed a £1m growth-stage equity round with Finance Yorkshire managed Equity Linked Investments in July. With offices in the USA, South Korea, and Stockholm, Sweden, Pertach’s product has applications in robotics, defence, and telecommunications, as well as more everyday objects including keyboards, cards, and toys.

Chief of Operations Doug Balderston says “in the next three to five years, we expect to grow our customer base and increase the value of the business to in excess of £100m”.