Nearhuman, a physical AI startup based at Bristol Robotics Laboratory, has raised £350,000 in pre-seed funding led by SFC Capital.
Founder Faizan Mir grew up in Kashmir and was building things from an early age. At 14, he built a drone and a working flamethrower, earning national recognition.
Yet he says his father’s response stayed with him: “How does a flamethrower help people? Build something that makes the world a better place.”
Mir took the advice. At 16, he represented North India in Mobile Robotics at IndiaSkills, the national skills competition, and won a Medallion for Excellence. He went on to study robotics at UWE Bristol and founded Nearhuman at Bristol Robotics Laboratory.
Shared micromobility has grown faster than the tools to manage it. In 2025, 235 pedestrians were injured in reported collisions involving e-scooters in Great Britain, according to Department for Transport figures. Yet operators and councils have little direct evidence of how and where vehicles are actually ridden.
Nearhuman’s answer is a camera module that fits onto vehicles already on the street. AI running on the vehicle detects pavement riding, close calls with pedestrians and road hazards as they happen. Footage is processed and redacted on board, so sensitive video never needs to leave the vehicle.
Operators get safety analytics without replacing their fleets. Councils get something they rarely have: street-level data on the condition of roads, cycle lanes and pavements, gathered by vehicles that cover the city every day.
“My father’s question has shaped everything I’ve built since,” said Mir, now 24, Nearhuman’s chief executive. “Shared scooters and bikes are one of the best things to happen to cities, but operators and councils are working blind.
“We’re giving them eyes on the ground, with privacy built into the hardware. I think he would finally approve of this one.”
The funding will bring on-device safety technology to the shared e-scooter and e-bike fleets now common in UK cities, the startup says.
Nearhuman has launched a live pilot in Bristol and plans to release further AI products in the coming months. The funding will support product development, on-street testing and commercial deployment.
Ed Stevenson, principal at SFC Capital, added: “AI has changed how we work on screens. The next shift is AI that runs inside physical machines, and Nearhuman is building for exactly that.
“E-scooters are a smart place to start, a real safety problem in UK cities today. But what Nearhuman is really building is the intelligence layer for the physical world.”