Highland Venture Capital

Actual Analytics, a recent spin-out from the University of Edinburgh, has announced the completion of a funding round, securing over £900,000 of investment to develop and take to market their first product.

The consortium of investors is led by Discovery Investment Fund and includes Highland Venture Capital, TriCap and the Scottish Enterprise Co-Investment Fund.  Scott Carnegie, Chairman of Discovery Investment Fund, said “Discovery are delighted to be leading the investment in this exciting business, along with our fellow Scottish Co-Investment Partners, TriCap and Highland Ventures.”

Actual Analytics use cutting-edge video analysis technology to automatically analyse behaviour – a crucial step in the development of new drugs treating diseases of the Central Nervous System (CNS), such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Disorders of the nervous system affect 1 in 3 people during their lives, account for the largest single burden on the NHS and are often long-term disabling illnesses for the patient, their friends and family.  At an estimated cost of over US$800m to take a new drug to market, Actual Analytics’ product will help customers cut costs and remove a significant bottleneck in the drug discovery pipeline.

James Heward, Actual Analytics CEO, said “This is an exciting milestone for the company, it allows us to commercialise this groundbreaking research, creating a product that will make a significant difference to organisations around the world working hard to develop revolutionary drugs.”

The technology has been validated with some of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies and academic laboratories across North America, Asia and Europe, and it is expected that these organisations will become early customers.

The product is the culmination of over 5 years of research within Edinburgh University’s School of Informatics, Europe’s largest and most highly rated computer science department.  Funding for the project to date has included a two year Scottish Enterprise Proof of Concept award and significant in-kind assistance from Informatics Ventures.

Dr Douglas Armstrong, Actual Analytics CSO, said “The financial and mentoring support we have been given by the Scottish Enterprise Proof of Concept and University of Edinburgh ProsPeKT programmes have been invaluable in enabling us to translate our research into this high potential business.”