At Beauhurst, we track all equity investments made into private UK companies made since 2011. Some of these are announced to the media, but a massive 70% of deals remain secret and never hit the press. We gather data on these by monitoring company filings that indicate that new shares have been allotted. There are a number of reasons why funding rounds may go unannounced – you can read more about them here.
We often like to showcase some of the companies that are raising impressive amounts under the media’s radar. This month, we’re profiling clinical diagnostics company BrainWaveBank. Filings submitted to Companies House show that the four-year-old startup secured £2.98m of equity finance at the beginning of August. Our Data team’s calculations of the filings show that this deal was completed at a pre-money valuation of just over £3.3m – that’s 2.5x the valuation associated with its first round funding back in 2016.
BrainWaveBank develops brain health monitoring headsets, which measure the brainwave activity of patients wearing them while playing brain training games. This data is collected, analysed, and used to identify patterns that may suggest cognitive decline, in order to diagnose possible cognitive illnesses earlier and more affordably than through hospital scans. Earlier detection of cognitive health disorders can allow doctors and patients to access the right treatment, sooner, to help minimise if not prevent further decline.
Founded in 2015 by a team of four, BrainWaveBank is led by Ronan Cunningham, an expert in early stage technology development, innovation strategy, and technology commercialisation. Team members include computational neuroscientist Dr Brian Murphy and commercial biomarker discovery specialist Dr. Timothy Davison.
The Belfast-based company has secured over £800k worth of grants and a total of £3.41m in equity funding over three different rounds to help develop their high impact tech. Although investors in their most recent round remain undisclosed, previous investors include the Angel CoFund, Techstart Ventures’ Techstart NI fund and British Business Bank.