AI is developing at an extraordinary pace. It could be the single biggest lever to deliver the missions set out in the Government's Plan For Change, with fast and sustainable economic growth foremost among them. The UK’s Artificial Intelligence Opportunities Action Plan, launched at the start of 2025, sets out a bold, forward-looking agenda: to train the UK’s workforce for jobs of the future; diffuse AI across the economy and public services; enhance productivity and opportunity; and embrace the transformational impact of the technology on everyday life.
Since the early beginnings of Alan Turing’s algorithms, the UK has been a global leader in artificial intelligence. Third largest in the world after only the US and China, the UK AI market was valued at $92 billion in 2024 and boasts over 3,000 AI companies and 60,000 full-time employees in AI related roles. More broadly, the UK’s tech ecosystem, driven by an enduring spirit of innovation, is now valued at over $1trillion and holds more unicorns than France and Germany combined. With four of the world’s top ten universities, the second largest number of Nobel Laureates, and digital clusters spread across every UK Nation and Region, our R&D prowess, deep talent pool, and geographical diversity make the UK’s tech sector one of our great success stories.
It is my pleasure to introduce our exceptional cohort of fourteen AI companies, carefully selected by our team at the UK’s Department for Business and Trade to showcase their ideas and capabilities at South by Southwest 2025 in Austin, Texas. The diversity of our delegation is a testament to the breadth and depth of the United Kingdom’s AI expertise: from London to Llandysul, Belfast to Bath, and Cambridge to Culham, these companies are creating innovative AI applications across space, energy, climate, law and more.
SXSW is unrivalled in its unique blend of innovation, tech and creativity, and its truly global reach makes it the perfect opportunity to display the best of UK AI to an audience of innovators, partners, investors and leaders in the tech community. UK House, a mainstay of SXSW having long showcased our digital and creative industries, will this year be home to our cohort of companies at the frontier of AI, and the forefront of building a modern Britain. We welcome you to visit us, and to enjoy our slice of South by Southwest’s festivities.
Jane Grady Deputy Director, Strategic Technologies, Department for Business and Trade
The UK Tech Industry
The UK tech industry is a key growth sector, growing at a faster rate than the UK economy and maintaining its lead as one of the world’s premier locations for tech of all kinds.
The UK is the world’s third largest tech economy. It has more tech unicorns than France and Germany combined. Valued at over $1 trillion, it follows the United States and China as a global tech superpower.
Driven by an enduring spirit of innovation, the UK truly is the Unicorn Kingdom, offering all the right ingredients for tech success and growth: world-class talent, R&D capability, pro-innovation regulation and a focus on global expansion.
The UK has produced 135 billion-dollar companies and is home to a further 258 startups on potential future unicorn track: more than double any European neighbour (source: Dealroom).
The UK attracted the largest share of US VC foreign investments in 2023
Source: Pitchbook
The combined value of UK tech companies founded since 2000 is now £540 billion, after the biggest year-on-year increase since 2013/14. The UK is more attractive to international investors than ever, with 63% of tech investment in 2020 coming from overseas, up from 50% in 2016.
The UK government has invested over $2.8 billion in AI since 2014 and are partnering with the US in promoting AI safety, in April signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to work together to develop tests for the most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models. The partnership will see the US and the UK align their scientific approaches and accelerate and rapidly iterate robust suites of evaluations for AI models, systems and agents.
AutogenAI helps organizations write and manage more winning proposals than ever before. With AutogenAI you can perform sophisticated text transformations to generate highquality winning prose at the click of a button, extract insights from large documents in minutes, evaluate your responses against proposal requirements in seconds, find and repurpose existing content with ease and so much more. Using AutogenAI is proven to quantifiably increase proposal team win-rates and efficiency levels. Ours is the only AI solution proving profitable for those using it.
Raj Kaur Khaira, Co-Founder and Deputy Global CEO raj@autogenai.com
Raj is a lawyer, author and anti-oppression activist, holding degrees in Biology, Politics and Law. She trained as a lawyer at one of London's top firms before becoming a senior operations advisor to tech start-ups helping them devise and implement their growth and expansion strategies. In April 2022 she cofounded AutogenAI with Sean Williams. Raj is also the founder of the globally acclaimed, award winning campaign, the Pink Ladoo Project and has written a book, Stories for South Asian Supergirls and is also the founder of southasiantherapists.org the world’s first global directory of South Asian therapists.
Jaimie Anzelone, Chief Marketing Officer for the Americas Jaimie.anzelone@autogenai.com
Jaimie Anzelone is the Chief Marketing Officer for the Americas at AutogenAI, bringing over a decade of experience in driving growth for emerging startups and established technology firms in the SaaS market. At the outset of her career, Jaimie founded Tipster, a simple, fast and secure way to pay for low-cost services and tips when you’re not carrying cash. Jaimie is deeply committed to mentoring the next generation of female leaders, serving on the advisory board of the University of New Haven's Women in Leadership MBA program.
Meet the UK companies
Beamery beamery.com
Beamery is an AI-powered platform that helps enterprise organizations make smarter talent decisions, by putting ‘skills’ at the core of their people strategy. Our technology for HR teams empowers businesses to transform their workforce, unlock the potential of their people, and hire top talent faster. Companies use Beamery to connect talent plans to business goals, reduce risk, and navigate change with confidence. We are proud to be building a more inclusive, skills-based economy, where everyone has equal access to work opportunities.
Matt Smith, Senior Vice President Sales matt.smith@beamery.com
Matt Smith is the Senior Vice President of Sales at Beamery, helping enterprise organizations make smarter talent decisions by putting skills at the core of their people strategy.
With extensive experience in the technology and HR sectors, Matt works closely with Beamery’s customers to connect their talent plans to business goals, empowering them to transform their workforce and unlock the potential of their people. Prior to joining Beamery, Matt held leadership roles at SAP and Peoplefluent, where he specialized in delivering innovative software solutions for workforce and talent management.
Steve Vierra, Chief Revenue Officer steve.vierra@beamery.com
At Beamery, Steve leads all go-to-market functions inclusive of sales, marketing, professional services and customer success. With over three decades of experience in the tech industry, Steve has consistently demonstrated his ability to transform visionary ideas into successful outcomes.
Steve spent almost 20 years at BMC Software. Additionally, Steve held global sales operations roles, mergers and acquisitions as well the global channel leader.
Meet the UK companies
DeepFlow takes a human-model-agnostic approach to workflows. Their proprietary ‘delegation zone’ technology dynamically passes slices of work between people, models, and agents – enabling someone in your team to finish work GenAI is stuck on, while powering a chain of models to complete 70% of a workflow before it even reaches a human. Simply put: the right slice of work, to the right worker - human or machine - in lightning time.
While 92% of Fortune 500 companies use models, there is a less than 1% shift in holistic company productivity. DeepFlow improves this to 200%. Unlike traditional tools that treat AI as a binary solution, DeepFlow’s approach integrates AI and human workflows seamlessly, unlocking efficiencies that are already possible but largely untapped. Current “calling” of AI relies on one employee calling one model to do one task in one conversation. DeepFlow’s blended approach gifts organisations the speed and output gains of models and agents, while retaining the alignment, nuance, and adaptability of humans. By optimizing these intersections, DeepFlow is redefining what’s possible for team and company productivity.
Jonathan Gilmore, Co-Founder & CEO jonathan@deepflow.com
Jonathan Gilmore is the Founder and CEO of DeepFlow, a commercial AI lab solving human-agentic orchestration. He previously ran Strategy and Operations across a portfolio of 400+ startups, spanning 3 enterprises, and 4 countries. Passionate about building the operational, legal, and agentic system of work a machine-mediated economy will run on, he has given talks on human-machine systems across the UK, Europe, and the United States.
Meet the UK companies
Delineate delineate.ai
Delineate are global consumer insights experts, on a mission to revolutionize the way brands track consumer behavior. We offer a unique approach to brand equity and campaign evaluation through our end-to-end research technology platform - Delineate Proximity™
Delineate Proximity™ revolutionizes the speed and immediacy with which marketers can draw actionable insights from consumer opinions to make business decisions. With access to over 170 million consumers in over 100 countries, delivering realtime multi-market data, via modern data tools, dashboards, and direct API connection, for insight teams, marketers, data science, and big data analytics.
James 'JT' Turner, CEO james.turner@delineate.ai
JT is former CIO at Black Swan Data, COO at Edelman DxI and Head of Research at BT with over 25 years industry experience. He is an insights and marketing consultant to some of the world’s largest brands and is a regular industry speaker. JT is on the quality standards advisory board of the Market Research Society and is a co-convener for the International Standard ISO20252.
James Stewart, Chief Operating Officer james.stewart@delineate.ai
James is former Digital Director for The Co-Operative Bank, Head of Usage and Engagement at Lloyds Banking Group and a founding member of a UK energy start-up. He is an experienced digital technologist and thrives in delivering operational excellence.
Meet the UK companies
digiLab digilab.ai
digiLab is a pioneering AI company that helps enterprises transform complex challenges into innovation with uncertainty quantification, explainable AI and MLOps. Working with organisations in highly regulated or safety-critical industries to solve their complex engineering, infrastructure or data challenges, digiLab specialises in solving problems where data is sparse or uncertain. Having grown from a small team of leading mathematicians and data scientists, digiLab teaches your teams how to solve their grand challenges using a secure AI platform, alongside expert consultancy. digiLab's platform - the Uncertainty Engine - is a no-code agentic AI platform that combines data, models and workflows to connect a trustworthy AI digital thread through an organisation.
Professor Tim Dodwell, CEO tim@digilab.ai
Tim is Co-Founder and CEO of digiLab. Sustainability and renewable energy are Tim’s passion. He is an advisor to the UKAEA, sits on the Fusion Skills Council and is an internationally recognised leader in Data-Centric Engineering, Uncertainty Quantification and Probabilistic Machine Learning. Alongside his work at digiLab, he remains a prominent member of the global machine learning research community at the University of Exeter, Alan Turing Institute, Turing AI Fellowship, and with visiting professorships at Heidelberg and MIT.
Alex Creswell, Advisor alex.creswell@digilab.ai
Alex left UK government service at the end of 2020 having served in a number of national security roles, often including a technology angle. He led a division of GCHQ and was the Director of the 70-strong team of analysts (JIO) which provides the Prime Minister’s daily intelligence briefing and writes strategic assessment papers for the National Security Council. Alex is also co-Chair of the Turing Innovation Catalyst, an AI accelerator in Manchester which secured funding in the Spring 2023 Budget.
Meet the UK companies
ExpectAI expectai.com
At ExpectAI, we're using Artificial Intelligence to solve a massive challenge: helping 330 million small and medium businesses fight climate change while improving their profits.
Our AI solution, Una, is like a brilliant advisor that tells companies exactly what green actions to take, connects them with the right solutions, and provides the financing to make it happen. We're proving that with AI, sustainability and profitability can go hand in hand.
Anand
Verma
- Founder & CEO anand.verma@xct.ai
Anand is a digital, AI and sustainability visionary, innovator and successful entrepreneur who has a deep understanding of the planet, people and technology needs. Holding over 27 years of professional experience in management consulting, digital and impactful businesses, he is passionate about creating positive change by humanising technology. In 2019, Anand made a commitment to fighting climate change issues and applying the power of design, data and AI to take actions. Anand is the Founder and CEO of ExpectAI. Prior to his recent venture, Anand was the Founder and CEO of Brilliant Basics. Previously, Anand was one of the youngest Presidents and CEO's at Interpublic Group (IPG) leading Mediabrands Ventures and their digital and ventures (M&A) arm.
Victoria Jefferson - Chief Marketing Officer tori.jefferson@xct.ai
Tori is a marketing leader specializing in developing and executing strategies that drive measurable impact and business growth. With a track record of success at AKQA, Apple, Nike, TIME, and Microsoft she has built and scaled brands, created market-defining narratives, and launched high-performing campaigns that accelerate growth. Now, as Head of Marketing of ExpectAI, she is focused on helping businesses profitably achieve net-zero emissions by applying AI-driven insights
action.
Meet the UK companies
Luminance luminance.com
Luminance’s end-to-end AI platform enhances every touchpoint a business has with its contracts. Developed by world-leading AI experts from Cambridge University, validated by leading lawyers, and trusted by over 700 customers in 70 countries, Luminance is the pioneer in Legal-Grade™ AI: wherever computer meets contract.
In the past year, Luminance has announced a series of new developments and world-firsts for AI, raised a $40 million series B funding round and continued to grow its customer base, including world-renowned organisations such as AMD, DHL and LG Chem.
Eleanor
Lightbody, CEO eleanor@luminance.com
Eleanor is Chief Executive Officer at Luminance. She is a former Director at world-leading cyber AI company, Darktrace, where she founded and grew the company’s operations in Africa before assuming her role as the Global Head of the Darktrace Industrial Division. With a wealth of experience in scaling fastgrowing technology businesses, Eleanor now oversees Luminance’s continued global expansion, having led the company’s $40 million Series B funding round in 2024. She was named in Management Today’s ‘35 Women under 35’ and sits on the Board of Directors for Luminance.
Brandon Pfluger,
Commercial Director Brandon.pfluger@luminance.com
A legal tech professional with a Juris Doctor (JD) degree, I’ve combined my legal background with a passion for innovation. As Commercial Director at Luminance, I lead a rapidly growing sales team, driving expansion across the U.S., including our newly launched Texas office. We are focused on delivering transformative AI-driven solutions to help legal professionals navigate the evolving landscape of modern practice more efficiently and effectively.
Meet the UK companies
Lumirithmic lumirithmic.com
We are Lumirithmic, and we specialize in services for computer graphics, real-time rendering, spatial computing, artificial intelligence, and skin science. Our expertise includes building rendering pipelines, developing tools for 3D asset creation, and implementing AI-driven solutions for automation and analysis.
Using patented, state-of-the-art hardware solutions, we offer high-resolution data capture, including 3D scanning, photogrammetry, and environmental mapping. Our focus on high-quality face capture enables the creation of precise digital avatars and realistic facial animations, essential for industries such as gaming, virtual production, and simulation.
In skin science, we develop advanced rendering and biometric analysis tools and visualizations, supporting both scientific research and real-world applications. From optimizing graphics workflows to building spatial interaction frameworks, we tailor solutions to meet diverse challenges. .
Jayanth Kannan, VP of Engineering jay@lumirithmic.com
Jayanth (Jay) Kannan serves as the Vice President of Software Engineering at Lumirithmic, where he oversees the development and deployment of advanced software solutions at the intersection of computer graphics, spatial computing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. With more than two decades of experience in architecting and delivering complex software systems, Jay has consistently demonstrated a deep technical acumen and a commitment to innovation in highly specialized domains.
Jay’s portfolio spans diverse verticals, such as financial technology, government systems, travel platforms, mental health applications, and line-of-business solutions. Beyond his technical leadership, Jay has been an active mentor to startups, offering guidance on leveraging emerging technologies and designing robust, market-ready solutions.
Meet the UK companies
PolyAI poly.ai
PolyAI is a leading innovator in customer-led conversational AI solutions, and the creator of the world's most lifelike voice AI. Their platform empowers businesses to create intelligent virtual assistants that understand natural language, enabling frustration-free interactions and exceptional customer experiences.
We power critical customer conversations across industries like travel & hospitality, financial services, retail and healthcare, and we work with brands such as FedEx, Caesars Entertainment and Unicredit.
PolyAI was founded in 2017 and born from the Machine Intelligence Lab at the University of Cambridge. We’ve raised over $120M in funding from leading investors such as Khosla Ventures, Point72 and NVIDIA. We've also received recognition from analysts such as Gartner and Forbes, and named amongst the fastest growing technology companies in the UK.
Michael
Chen, VP of Strategic Alliances michael@poly.ai
Michael is the VP of Strategic Alliances and Corporate Development at PolyAI. He is a member of the senior leadership team and is responsible for go-to-market efforts with technology partners and global systems integrators as well as leading cross-functional strategic initiatives. Michael is also the executive sponsor for the travel & hospitality and healthcare industries within PolyAI.
Meet the UK companies
Quorso quorso.com
Quorso’s intelligent management platform eliminates the complexity and overwhelm of too much data, too many tasks, and too many systems.
By combining advanced technology with human-centric workflows, it unifies and consolidates siloed solutions like tasks, surveys, performance analytics, and exception reporting —into a comprehensive, action-focused and more enhanced platform that dives business performance at every level of management.
Trusted by world-leading retailers like Walmart Mexico, Dollar General, Tractor Supply Company, and CVS, Quorso is helping their operators boost productivity, achieve better results, and cut through the clutter of traditional store tech.
Julian Mills - Co-Founder and CEO julian.mills@quorso.com
Julian Mills is the CEO and Co-Founder of Quorso, an intelligent managment platform that prioritizes daily work for data overloaded managers at some of the world’s companies.
Before founding Quorso, he was a partner at McKinsey & Company, focusing on major retail turnarounds, and cofounded the Global Infrastructure Initiative with Madeleine Albright. Julian holds degrees from Oxford and Stanford Universities.
Phil Thorne - Founding Team and COO phil.thorne@quorso.com
Phil Thorne is a member of Quorso's founding team and is responsible for a number of areas including operations, finance and business development. Prior to joining Quorso, he was a Vice President at J.P. Morgan, advising on corporate finance, including capital raisings, mergers, acquisitions, and public takeovers across various sectors. Phil earned his degree in Economics and Management from Oxford University.
Meet the UK companies
Rocketmakers rocketmakers.com
Rocketmakers have been creating high quality, innovative solutions for over 17 years and have been recognised with various awards including the Queens Award for Enterprise in Innovation as well as Digital Agency of the Year and Best AI Innovation at the 2024 Global Business Tech Awards. We’re excited to launch the Rocketmakers Labs “Holosuite” as part of the UK SXSW Tech Trade Mission - a set of enabling technologies cutting across both AI and XR which combine dynamic 3D spaces (using Beam - https://beam3d.co/) , dynamic AI people (using Portrait - https://theportrait.ai/) and dynamic AI teams (using Group Portrait, as demonstrated in https://yourroom.ai/).
Richard Godfrey, CEO & Co-founder richard@rocketmakers.com
Richard Godfrey, is an experienced and trusted CTO, software architect, investor, entrepreneur and innovator with a demonstrated history of delivering major systems via Rocketmakers, Microsoft and Deloitte over the last 30 years. Richard is focused on helping innovative start-ups, scale-ups and corporates of all shapes and sizes to deliver disruptive and engaging customer experiences through the application of new technology. He has also been recognosed as Innovation and Technology Leader of the Year by Business Leader and received two Lifetime Achievement accolades.
Keith Walker, CTO & Co-founder keith@rocketmakers.com
Co-founder and CTO of Rocketmakers, Keith Walker has vast background in architecting and delivering secure, performant, available and scalable technical platforms. He has over 30 years experience working across various market verticals, from broadcasting at the BBC, transportation at the London Underground, and publishing with Pearsons. Keith is focused on delivering cost effective solutions for startups, bringing engineering rigour to scale-ups and bringing a start-up focus to innovative corporate enterprises.
Meet the UK companies
Secondmind secondmind.ai
Secondmind is a diverse team of AI and automotive engineering experts in Cambridge, UK and Yokohama, Japan that exists to help automotive engineers design better cars faster, and achieve sustainability through machine learning. Founded in 2016 and supported by investors such as Amadeus Capital, Atlantic Bridge and Cambridge Innovation Capital, Secondmind was recently recognized with the Automotive Testing Technology International 'Alternative Powertrain Test Innovation of the Year Award'; selected for the Tech Nation Future Fifty scale-up program, and named by Bloomberg as one of the UK’s 25 startups to watch.
Gary Brotman, CEO ary.brotman@secondmind.ai
ary Brotman is a passionate product and technology angelist, and post-pivot founder and CEO of Cambridge gland-based Secondmind. He has 20+ years of experience ading teams responsible for building and commercializing oducts with AI, mobility and music at their core. Prior to ning Secondmind, Gary was the Head of AI Strategy and Product Planning for Qualcomm Technologies Inc., where he led the development and launch of the first four generations of the Qualcomm AI Engine.
Morgan Jenkins, Chief Product Officer morgan.jenkins@secondmind.ai
Morgan Jenkins, Chief Product Officer at Secondmind, is a globally-experienced software executive who excels in strategic growth and innovation within the Computer-Aided Design (CAD), Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE), and Electronic Design Automation (EDA) domains. Jenkins has held numerous leadership positions during his career, prior to Secondmind, he was Vice President of Simulation and Test Solutions at Siemens Digital Industries, where he led teams to drive business innovation and growth of existing and new products in the simulation space.
Meet the UK companies
Whitespace white.space
Whitespace leads in creating smarter, safer AI solutions for enterprises. As AI presents transformative opportunities, many companies struggle to harness its full potential. Whitespace bridges this gap with Collective - an AI-powered enterprise platform built to enhance decision-making, maximise productivity, and solve even the most complex challenges.
Collective utilises AI capabilities, originally developed as standalone solutions for UK Defence, to boost productivity and accelerate workflows in the workplace.
Integrates all leading AI models into a single, intelligent workspace that understands your needs. No more switching between tools or guessing which AI to use – our platform proactively chooses the right models for each task. Leverage Collective’s bespoke AI operating system to quickly develop custom AI solutions, reducing costs while driving innovation and transforming your business operations.
At Whitespace, we’re not just building AI systems. We’re laying the foundation for a future where humans and machines work together like never before. The question isn’t whether this future is coming - it’s whether you’ll be ready.
Paul Jenkinson, Founder & CEO paul@white.space
Paul Jenkinson is CEO and Co-Founder of Whitespace. Prior to Whitespace Paul spent 25 years building tech companies: initially as a Corporate Finance Adviser; then he was on the board of seven VC backed tech companies and two listed tech companies; then in 2007 he co-founded his first tech company and exited in 2011 to a US Nasdaq quoted company; and then in 2012 he founded an early stage tech VC firm that has made 150 investments to date. In 2015 Paul joined with Andy McCartney (who was CEO of Microsoft Ventures) to create and build Whitespace into a fast-growing Defence (and dual-use) AI company with contracts with the MOD and DoD.
Meet the UK companies
Xapien xapien.com
Xapien is revolutionizing the way organizations conduct background research and due diligence through its pioneering AI technology. Founded in 2018, Xapien delivers executive-level intelligence reports on any person or organization worldwide in minutes. Our automated platform harnesses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to emulate complex human research processes, enabling organizations to make confident, auditable decisions about their business relationships.
Chris Green - CEO chris.green@xapien.com
Chris is a seasoned leader with 25 years of experience in datadriven insight across Government, National Security, and Financial Services. He began his career at Detica (now BAE Systems), where he led major programmes, including a £20M analytics capability upgrade for a UK national security agency post-9/11. Chris also spearheaded Detica’s expansion into the US and later grew its Intelligence business by £45M in three years. As CEO of Xapien, he has driven remarkable growth, scaling the company from $100k to $5M in just three years.
Rupert Cook, Investor pert@redpenguinventures.com
upert Cook has 30 years of experience in scaling technology ompanies, including 20 years in corporate finance and vestment. He has led numerous fundraisings, acquisitions, nd sales of technology businesses and co-founded an IT aining and consultancy firm, which he successfully sold to a K plc. Rupert is currently Chair of the Investment Committee at British Smaller Companies VCT plc and serves as a nonexecutive director for companies including Immersive Labs and Censornet.
Department for Business and Trade
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Published by Department for Business and Trade Jan 2025
