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Luffy AI, the Abingdon-based pioneer of neuroplastic AI for real-time adaptive control, has raised £8.1 million in a Series A round as it looks to overturn a piece of industrial engineering that has barely changed in a hundred years.
The round is led by BGF, the most active equity investor in the UK and Ireland, with Munich-based deep tech investor MIG Capital AG participating through its MIG Fonds. Existing backers Bow Capital, Chrysalix, Momenta and UKI2S have all followed on.
Founded by Dr Matthew Carr and Dr Alex Meakins, both former nuclear physicists with the UK Atomic Energy Authority, and headquartered on the Culham Campus in Oxfordshire, Luffy has built an AI stack designed to sidestep the data, compute and connectivity demands that have kept conventional deep learning out of factories.
Its sparse neural networks are trained in simulation, without the vast data sets deep learning normally requires, then refined in the real world, where the company says they can achieve up to 400 times greater efficiency than traditional approaches. The lightweight architecture is ultra-energy efficient and self-refining, with no constant retraining from the cloud.
The prize is substantial. Electric motors account for around half of the world’s electricity consumption, according to the International Energy Agency, and the vast majority run inefficiently. Luffy is deploying its models into industrial motor control and variable frequency drive applications, including pumps, fans and conveyors, enabling plug-and-play motors that tune themselves to their load and operating conditions. The result, the company says, is lower energy use, faster commissioning and better overall performance.
“AI has been transformative for language and image generation, but has yet to make a substantial impact in industry beyond predictive maintenance and dashboards,” said Dr Carr, Luffy’s chief executive. “Factories, motors and physical systems need AI that is small, fast and adaptive in real time, not cloud-dependent, or with huge data and compute requirements. At Luffy we’ve already proven what’s possible with AI motor control and will use this new funding to scale up our delivery and rollout.”
The funding lands amid a boom in British AI investment, which hit a record £8.3 billion last year, and will be used to convert successful proofs of concept and pilots into partnerships with major industrial brands, the sort of commercialisation journey Innovate UK is now prioritising for Britain’s high-potential technology firms. Longer term, the company sees applications in positioning control for robotics and drones, thermal process control and wider physical AI.
Kate Ronayne, early stage investor at BGF, said: “Luffy AI is disrupting an industry norm that has stood for 100 years. Embedding highly specialised AI directly into physical industrial systems reduces reliance on specialist engineers through a self-commissioning, one-size-fits-all approach. The company has taken impressive steps to validate their differentiated technology, and we’re delighted to partner with them as they scale.”
Dr Nicolas Rose-André, investment manager at MIG Capital, added: “Luffy does more with far less data and compute, which is precisely what makes AI workable inside physical machines. With electric motors consuming around half the world’s electricity, the efficiency opportunity alone is enormous. We’re backing a rare mix of differentiated technology and a world-class team to deliver it.”
