VC Funding Pre-Seed 15 Apr 2026
Investor: Haatch Ventures, British Business Bank, D2N2
UK-based advanced manufacturing startup StirLight has successfully secured a £1.25 million funding package. The capital injection consists of a £750,000 pre-seed equity round led by Haatch Ventures—with participation from The British Business Bank, D2N2, and angel investors—alongside £500,000 in grant funding from Innovate UK and the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI).
Summary of transaction details:
Value: £1,250,000 (£750k Pre-Seed Equity + £500k Grants)
Sector: Industrials & Energy / Advanced Manufacturing / DeepTech
Advisor: Not disclosed
Key Entities: Target: StirLight; Lead Equity Investor: Haatch Ventures; Additional Investors/Grantors: British Business Bank, D2N2, Innovate UK, ATI; Key Founders: Toby Savage-Yu (CEO), Dr. Jeroen De Backer (CTO), Dan Lord (COO)
Location: Chesterfield, UK
Note: Friction stir welding (FSW) is a highly efficient, solid-state joining process widely utilized in the aerospace, automotive, defence, and nuclear sectors. Because it doesn't melt the metal, it produces stronger, lighter joints with significantly lower energy consumption. However, verifying the integrity of these welds at scale has traditionally required costly and slow post-weld inspections. StirLight is solving this bottleneck with "StirSense," a proprietary quality assurance platform that captures process-specific data to provide real-time, in-process anomaly detection. This funding will accelerate pilot deployments with major industrial OEMs and support the expansion of their engineering and data science teams.
