£2m investment for startup company Oxford HighQ

Oxford HighQ, a quantum technologies startup, has received around £2.1 million in seed funding to commercialize components of a quantum computing technology that can be used to develop improved chemical and nanoparticle sensing technologies. Currently they are developing sensors up to 10,000 times more sensitive than any optical sensing technologies on the market, for use in medical diagnostics and nanomedicine.

Jeremy Warren, co-founder and CEO of HighQ, said: “Our sensors are based on optical microresonators, which are able to amplify signals in any of the wide variety of optical methods commonly used in chemical sensing. While the use of optical microresonators in sensing is not a new idea, our team has pioneered methods for resonator fabrication and use that will make microresonator-enhanced sensors a commercial reality for the first time. There is a clear opportunity to improve the downstream end of existing diagnostic devices by supplanting the existing detectors with microresonators. There is a good fit here as HighQ sensors utilize the microfluidics that are so common to diagnostic medical devices, so this can provide better sensitivity at a lower cost on already proven diagnostics. We are well-financed and have access to excellent technologies as we maintain our links with the University of Oxford. We also have proven expertise in getting new technologies to market. We anticipate having devices in test in Q2 2019. I’ll stick my neck out and predict we have open market products by the end of 2020. Certainly sooner than five years time.”