AI-powered crop diagnostics company Fotenix has secured £2.1m in new funding to help farmers detect disease and protect yields, weeks before symptoms appear.
The Greater Manchester-based startup has received a six-figure investment from EHE Ventures’ AI Growth Fund, unlocking a £1.6m Innovate UK grant.
The round was led by River Capital and marks one of five investments from the EHE fund during Q1 2025.
The firm uses a combination of multi-spectral imaging, robotics, and AI to create 3D digital twins of crops, enabling growers to identify stress and disease long before visual symptoms emerge.
Alacrity Foundation trio win backing for child social care innovation
It is now positioned to scale its AI platform across UK farms, expand its team and scale further.
“We’re proud to be building a homegrown solution that gives farmers earlier, better insight and helps them meet the challenge of sustainable food production head-on,” said Dr. Charles Veys, founder and CEO of Fotenix.
“This funding is a major step forward in getting it into more growers’ hands.”
Neil Vose, CEO of EHE Venture Studio, added: “Fotenix is applying AI to one of the world’s most urgent challenges – food security – and doing it in a way that’s already delivering value on the ground.
“This is exactly the kind of practical, scalable innovation our fund was built to back.”
EHE Ventures launched its AI Growth Fund in October 2024 to back early-stage UK startups using AI to solve real-world problems, and plans to deploy £5m in investment in its first year.