Prime Highlights:
- Polaron secures £5.8 million to develop a platform that will change how advanced materials are studied, designed, and produced.
- The funding will help expand the engineering team, accelerate tool rollout, and meet growing demand from automotive, energy, and manufacturing industries.
Key Facts:
- The investment round was led by Racine2, with co-investments from Speedinvest and Futurepresent, plus backing from industry experts.
- Polaron’s platform focuses on improving materials understanding and design, bridging the gap between research and industrial production.
Background:
Polaron, a London-based startup working in materials science, has raised £5.8 million ($8 million) to develop a new platform that will change how advanced materials are studied, designed, and produced.
The funding round was led by Racine2, an impact-focused investment fund, with additional support from Speedinvest, Futurepresent, and other industry experts. The money will help Polaron grow its engineering team, speed up the release of its design tools, and meet growing demand from industries such as automotive, energy, and manufacturing.
Founded by CEO Isaac Squires, CTO Steve Kench, and Chief Scientist Sam Cooper, Polaron spun out of Imperial College London following seven years of research at the intersection of materials science and machine learning. The company’s technology has already been deployed by leading global manufacturers, including electric vehicle makers responsible for over a third of worldwide EV production. One notable application has improved the energy density of battery electrodes by more than 10 percent.
“For more than a century, industries have relied on machines to shape materials. We are now teaching machines to understand them,” said Isaac Squires, CEO of Polaron. “Our platform is designed to accelerate discovery, improve design, and enable the next generation of advanced materials.”
The company addresses a longstanding challenge in manufacturing: connecting how materials are processed with how they perform. Polaron’s platform analyzes real material data, helping engineers understand how materials are structured and how to improve them for industrial production. It can turn two-dimensional images into three-dimensional models and quickly spot complex features.
By connecting research with practical manufacturing, Polaron helps design better materials faster, including metals, ceramics, polymers, and composites. The platform also provides insights that were not possible before, cutting manual work from thousands of hours to just minutes.
Investors praise Polaron’s ability to turn scientific knowledge into real-world applications. Florian Obst of Speedinvest said, “Polaron focuses on the critical point where materials innovation often fails: turning laboratory discoveries into manufacturable products.”
With this new funding, Polaron plans to grow in the materials industry, helping create stronger, more efficient, and higher-performing products.
