£1.6 million
seed funding round (October 2025) co-led by East X Ventures, SVV (Sure Valley Ventures), and UKI2S.
Founded in April 2025, Astut is an Oxfordshire-based Hybrid AI startup spun out of Oxford University mathematics research. The company is pioneering a new generation of explainable AI – designed to help organisations make confident, transparent decisions in situations where no historical data exists.
These “High Stakes Unseen Decision (HSUD)” scenarios arise when businesses or institutions face unprecedented events – from unexpected crises to one-off strategic opportunities — where existing AI systems fail due to their reliance on past data.
Astut’s groundbreaking approach allows organisations in sectors such as defence and security, energy, finance, retail, and consultancy to reason clearly through the unknown.
In October 2025, the company raised £1.6 million in seed funding to commercialise its Hybrid AI platform. The round was co-led by East X Ventures and Sure Valley Ventures (SVV), with participation from the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S), managed by Future Planet Capital
Astut’s Hybrid AI combines symbolic reasoning with generative AI, representing a major leap forward for intelligent, auditable decision-making.
The system consists of two integrated layers:
This approach enables Astut to generate transparent, explainable, and non-refutable reasoning chains – a key capability for organisations operating in high-risk, data-scarce environments.
Founder Professor Pete Grindrod CBE, an internationally recognised mathematician and Founding Trustee of the Alan Turing Institute, has led the development of this hybrid reasoning engine after decades of research in mathematics, AI, and neuromorphic modelling.
seed funding round (October 2025) co-led by East X Ventures, SVV (Sure Valley Ventures), and UKI2S.
by Professor Pete Grindrod CBE, an Oxford mathematician and Founding Trustee of the Alan Turing Institute.
to launch from the Government’s AI Growth Zone at Culham Science Centre, Oxfordshire
“As a fund, we invest at the very frontier of innovation – where uncertainty isn’t a risk, but the spark for discovery and transformation. Whether it’s defence, biotech, or fusion energy, we see immense potential for Astut’s technology to bring clarity and confidence to decision-making in complex, high-stakes environments.
Astut’s approach to combining symbolic reasoning with generative AI directly aligns with the kind of sovereign capabilities the UK needs to develop and protect.”
UKI2S’s investment in Astut reflects its commitment to supporting frontier technologies that address challenges beyond the reach of traditional AI. By backing Astut’s Hybrid AI reasoning engine, UKI2S is helping the company bridge the gap between academic research and real-world application – particularly in national security, defence, energy, and financial resilience.
Operating from the UK’s first AI Growth Zone at Culham Campus, Astut is ideally positioned to advance the UK’s leadership in explainable AI and sovereign digital capabilities. UKI2S’s partnership, alongside other leading VCs, ensures the company can accelerate pilot programmes and expand collaborations across strategic sectors where explainable AI will have the greatest impact.
Astut’s mission is to make AI reasoning as transparent as human logic – empowering decision-makers to act decisively when it matters most.
With support from UKI2S, the company is taking its Hybrid AI platform from research to real-world deployment, helping to secure the UK’s position at the forefront of ethical, explainable, and sovereign AI innovation.
By transforming how organisations think, decide, and adapt in times of uncertainty, Astut is paving the way for a future where AI augments human creativity and critical reasoning, not replaces it.
© UKI2S and Future Planet Capital (Ventures) Limited. All Rights Reserved. UKI2S is managed by Future Planet Capital (Ventures) Limited which is Authorised and Regulated in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority FRN 148549. Registered in England and Wales. Company Number 2500898. Registered Address: Future Planet Capital (Ventures) Limited, 1 Scott Place, 2 Hardman Street, Manchester, M3 3AA.