£1.7m · Other round · Energy · Cambridge, UK
Image: ZEISS Group, via the official ZEISS newsroom press-photo download.
Cambridge-based Illumion, a University of Cambridge spinout developing optical tools for battery research, has raised £1.7m in funding. ZEISS Ventures said it invested alongside Foresight Group, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, Parkwalk, Cambridge Angels and YourVC. The company will use the capital for commercialisation, its product roadmap and work with researchers, battery developers and industrial partners.
Seeing battery behaviour before it becomes a production problem
Illumion commercialises charge photometry, an imaging method that shows how individual particles behave inside a working battery during charge and discharge. Its first product, illumionONE, is a laboratory system designed to give researchers real-time, particle-level information that conventional testing can struggle to expose. The company says this can help teams connect changes in battery materials to performance and degradation without relying only on destructive tests.
The commercial proposition is diagnostic rather than manufacturing-led: Illumion sells a tool that can help battery R&D teams learn faster before committing to new materials or cell designs. That places value on the quality and speed of decisions the instrument enables. A useful system must do more than produce striking images; it needs to fit experimental workflows, generate repeatable measurements and help customers resolve questions that would otherwise require longer test cycles.
Illumion is also developing illumionX for selected industrial use cases. ZEISS describes the platform as a next-generation extension of the company’s optical analytics work, while illumionONE remains focused on real-time battery-material analysis. Moving from research laboratories into industrial development and quality-control environments would broaden the customer base, but it will also require evidence that the measurements remain useful across different materials, equipment and production constraints.
A strategic investor adds more than capital
ZEISS Ventures gives Illumion a backer with imaging expertise and an international industrial network. ZEISS says its venture arm supports portfolio companies with technical knowledge and access to its network, which could help Illumion refine product requirements and reach specialist customers. The immediate milestone is still commercial execution: turning collaborations into repeatable installations and demonstrating that particle-level insight shortens development work for battery teams.
Illumion was founded in 2022 by CEO Christoph Schnedermann and R&D lead Alice Merryweather, building on University of Cambridge research by Clare Grey and Akshay Rao. The company previously closed a £2.1m seed round in 2024. The new financing therefore funds a later commercialisation step rather than the original scientific spinout.
