IQ Capital Research
Investment Thesis
IQ Capital is a Cambridge, UK-founded deep tech venture capital firm built on the conviction that frontier technology will underpin the next generation of globally significant companies. Founded in 2005 by Ed Stacey, Kerry Baldwin, and Max Bautin, the firm has spent two decades partnering with founders advancing intelligence, reinventing energy, accelerating computation, decoding biology, and building resilience across industrial sectors. IQ Capital explicitly targets IP-rich, breakthrough technologies where traditional venture playbooks don't apply, backing scientists and engineers translating deep research into commercial products across AI & Automation, Advanced Engineering & Energy, Health & Bio, Security & Resilience, Computing & Semiconductors, and Cloud & Enterprise Infrastructure.
Stage Focus
IQ Capital invests from Pre-Seed through Series A as the primary entry point, then reserves substantial follow-on capital through dedicated Growth Opportunity Funds to support winners through internationalization and scale-up rounds (Series B and beyond).
Check Size
Initial checks typically range from roughly $0.5M-$10M+ (reported as low as £0.5M and as high as $10-12.5M depending on hardware intensity), with average seed cheques around $2.5M (up to $5M in hardware-heavy areas). Growth Fund II can deploy up to $40M per company in follow-on capital for outperformers scaling internationally.
Lead Tendency
IQ Capital both leads and follows. It has led rounds outright (e.g., Nuclear Turbines' £15M seed in July 2026, Trogenix's £70M/$95M Series A in October 2025) and participated as a syndicate member in larger rounds led by other institutions (e.g., Nyobolt's Series C led by Symbotic, Nu Quantum's Series A led by National Grid Partners, RevEng.AI's round led by NATO Innovation Fund, IMU Biosciences co-led with Molten Ventures).
Recent Activity
IQ Capital is actively deploying from its $400M pool (Fund IV, $200M venture fund, final close June 2023; Growth Fund II, $200M, launched alongside it), which took total AUM past $1 billion. Notable moves in the last 12 months include:
- Led a £15M seed round for Nuclear Turbines (July 2026), a BAE Systems nuclear spinout building compact advanced reactor turbines.
- Backed QuantumDiamonds' €91M round (July 2026) for next-gen chip inspection, continuing from an earlier seed and a €152M Munich manufacturing facility announcement (December 2025).
- Co-led IMU Biosciences' $53M+ Series A extension (June 2026) for immune-system profiling.
- Participated in RevEng.AI's $15M Series A (May 2026) for AI-generated software security, alongside NATO Innovation Fund and In-Q-Tel.
- Backed Nyobolt's $60M Series C at a $1B valuation (May 2026), pushing the ultrafast-charging battery maker to unicorn status.
- Portfolio company Trogenix published breakthrough pre-clinical glioblastoma data in Nature (April 2026) following its IQ Capital-led £70M/$95M Series A (October 2025).
- Backed Nu Quantum's record $60M Series A (December 2025), the largest-ever raise for a pure-play quantum networking company.
Portfolio Highlights
IQ Capital has backed over 200 European deep tech founders since 2005 across roughly 60 active companies and 16 acquisitions. Notable active names span quantum (Nu Quantum, QuantumDiamonds), batteries and energy (Nyobolt, Molyon, Nuclear Turbines, IONATE), robotics (Gravis Robotics, Flink, Opteran), semiconductors (Cambridge GaN Devices, Porotech, Signaloid), AI infrastructure and security (Boltzbit, causaLens, Imandra, Mindgard, RevEng.AI, TurinTech), and biotech (DreamFold, Mytos, Trogenix, IMU Biosciences, Baseimmune). Notable exits include Audio Analytic and Bloomsbury AI (both acquired by Meta), Spectral Edge (acquired by Apple), Foundries.io (acquired by Qualcomm), Senseye (acquired by Siemens), Phonetic Arts (acquired by Google), and Neul (acquired by Huawei) — a strong track record of strategic acquirer exits for a deep tech-focused fund.
Team
IQ Capital is led by four General Partners who have worked together for over 20 years, supported by a broader partner and investment team:
- Ed Stacey — Managing Partner, co-founder
- Kerry Baldwin — Managing Partner, co-founder
- Max Bautin — Managing Partner, co-founder
- Simon Hirtzel — General Partner, COO
- Archie Muirhead — Partner (promoted from Associate in 2023)
- Alex Wilson — Partner (promoted from Associate in 2023)
- Jonno Evans — Partner
- Mason Sinclair — Partner
- Naoki Kamimaeda — Venture Partner
- Jordan Billiald — Principal, Investment Team
- Kush Desai — Associate, Investment Team
- Céline Caraffa — Research Associate, Investment Team
- Ryan Stevens — Head of Portfolio, Operations Team
- Conor McCarthy — Head of Finance, Operations Team
- Elaine Hegarty — Chief of Staff, Operations Team
- Catherine Knott — Executive Assistant / Operations
- Oonagh Fawcett Wood — Investor Relations Associate
- Lucy Edwards — Finance Analyst
- Lucy Marston — Finance Analyst
Decision Process
IQ Capital operates as a multi-GP partnership (four Managing/General Partners plus additional partners), consistent with a partnership-style investment decision process rather than a solo-GP or large investment-committee model.
Founder Preferences
IQ Capital favors deeply technical founding teams — often academic spinouts or engineers/scientists with IP-rich breakthroughs — building in categories where traditional software venture playbooks don't apply: hard science, hardware, and regulated/technical domains requiring genuine defensibility.
Geographic Focus
Primarily UK and European deep tech (Cambridge and London-based, with a strong Cambridge ecosystem bias), with an explicit strategy of building bridges between European and Asian deep tech ecosystems (e.g., the Munich-based QuantumDiamonds facility, Naoki Kamimaeda's Venture Partner role).