The UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S), managed by Future Planet Capital, has received a combined additional £33.25m across three of its six thesis areas, taking the fund’s total capacity to £150m. The capital is provided by the UK Space Agency (£9.25m for Space thesis), the Ministry of Defence (£4m for Defence) and the UK Atomic Energy Authority (£20m for Fusion technologies).
The additional funding strengthens UKI2S’s ability to back UK-based spin-outs and early-stage companies across three of the eight priority sectors in the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy: Defence, Clean Energy Industries, and Digital and Technologies. The defence allocation supports the 2025 Defence Industrial Strategy’s focus on dual-use tech and UK industrial growth.
UKI2S has backed more than 123 UK deep tech companies since launch, including Tropic and Tokamak Energy, and has deployed £55.7m into early-stage UK deep tech companies, helping catalyse more than £1bn in follow-on private capital – equivalent to approximately £18 of additional investment for every £1 initially invested by the fund.
Operating as an evergreen fund, UKI2S reinvests returns from successful exits back into the next generation of UK innovation. Previous exits include Cobalt Light Systems (acquired by Agilent), Spectral Edge (acquired), Perfectus Biomed (acquired by NAMSA) and Quethera (acquired by Astellas), with more than £10m returned to the fund to date.
This announcement comes as the UK government accelerates delivery against its Modern Industrial Strategy, with a clear focus on UK-based tech that strengthens national resilience and economic competitiveness.
The UK Space Agency’s £9.25m top-up takes the UKI2S Space Portfolio to £22m, which has already crowded in more than £17m of additional investment.
Recent backing for companies including Silicon Microgravity, Optera and Spaceflux, developing advanced sensing and helping protect the orbital environment, shows how early public capital pulls private money in behind UK sovereign capability.
