When Debbie Toms met Chad Edwards at a casual barbecue in early 2024, neither of them could have predicted what would unfold. Two years on, CuspAI has raised over $130 million, assembled a world-class team across Europe, and is tackling some of humanity's most pressing challenges through AI driven materials discovery. It's the kind of origin story that makes you question whether you've been to the right barbecues lately.

What makes Debs' journey particularly compelling is her transition from structured corporate roles. Nine years at Deloitte, eight at Marshall Aerospace, to the controlled chaos of an early-stage deep tech startup. Her insight?

"You have to get very comfortable very quickly with just not knowing all the answers."

The company itself represents a genuine breakthrough. CuspAI has built an agentic platform that models material properties with extraordinary speed. Where traditional materials discovery involves years of laboratory work with a mere 6% success rate, CuspAI can deliver equivalent results in 45 minutes with a projected 90% success rate.

Key Milestones in Two Years

· Company incorporated March 2024

· Seed round closed June 2024

· First platform version live January 2025

· Series A raised over $100 million

· Team grown to 55 employees with contracts signed for more across UK, Amsterdam, Berlin, and London

CuspAI isn't building technology for technology's sake. Their partnerships focus on genuinely transformative applications, for example:

· Carbon capture through direct air capture (DAC) projects with Meta

· Forever chemicals removal from water in partnership with Khmera, a NASDAQ-listed Finnish company

· Next-generation batteries and semiconductors addressing real infrastructure challenges

As Debs notes, there's genuine purpose embedded in the work: "The loveliest thing about that project is our lead chemist working on that project was pregnant at the time and is really aware that this is something that is impacting human life."

What's Next?

CuspAI is expanding aggressively into Asia-Pacific with a Singapore office and partnership already in motion. They're announcing new talent hires and partnership deals over the coming months, with an ambitious goal to deliver best-in-class materials by year-end.

For founders and investors, CuspAI's story offers several lessons: the importance of mission-driven teams, the power of combining deep technical expertise (Max Welling's world-leading AI research) with commercial acumen (Chad Edwards' background), and the value of building based on what customers actually need.

Listen to the full episode to hear Debs discuss the mental health implications of AI tools, why Cambridge needs to do more for AI talent, and how she maintains culture whilst scaling at breakneck speed.

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In the latest episode of the Cambridge Tech Podcast, hosts James Parton and Faye Holland chat with Rafie Faruq, co-founder of Genie AI.

Genie AI is already backed by Google Ventures and Khosla Ventures, operates across 35+ countries, and serves everyone from SMEs to enterprises. But the real story? It's about reimagining an entire industry.

"We're democratizing expertise and what we're really selling is trust."

Genie AI's secret sauce is a patent-pending architecture called Eidetic Intelligence, which dramatically outperforms ChatGPT and Claude for legal tasks:

• 86% accuracy on benchmarks vs. GPT's 48% a significant leap in legal quality
• Handles unlimited context length across 20-30+ documents simultaneously
• Creates a knowledge graph of company policies, templates, and negotiation behaviour
• Maintains legal quality through intelligent compression and gating mechanisms

This matters because most law firms operate on a template and tweak model, charging tens of thousands for slightly modified contracts. Genie flips the script entirely.

Perhaps most fascinating is Rafie's vision for the future of work itself. As AI agents handle more tasks autonomously, company structures are already shifting:

Rather than cross-functional teams slowing things down with collaboration, we're moving towards generalists managing multiple AI agents - essentially, one-person companies at scale.

Tune in to hear the full conversation on the Cambridge Tech Podcast - available on all major platforms.

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This episode of the Cambridge Tech Podcast tackled one of the industry's most overlooked crises: electronic waste. We spoke with Sonia Lange Ramontja, founder of Retapp, about building a sustainable business that's as profitable as it is purposeful.

Here's a sobering statistic: e-waste constitutes 70% of all toxic waste globally, yet it remains largely invisible in mainstream conversations. Sonia recognised this gap and built Retapp to address it.

Retapp ran a successful pilot from July to September 2025, collecting 860 kilos of electronics across five pop-up events in collaboration with Cambridge City Council. The product is now live on both App Store and Google Play.

Retapp's platform combines consumer-friendly design with intelligent automation:

• Users scan devices using the app (phones, laptops, toasters—anything with a plug or battery)
• AI identifies categories, estimates weight, and calculates resale value or eco-points
• Users choose drop-off or collection options
• Optional data erasure certificates available for enhanced security
• Sustainability metrics track environmental impact

Retapp also provides detailed device insights to refurbishers and recyclers through a web portal, helping them manage the deluge of electronics without overwhelming their operations.

Currently fundraising their pre-seed round, Retapp is seeking investors who understand the circular economy and recognise this as a genuine business opportunity. With EU circular economy regulations tightening and extended producer responsibility (EPR) becoming mandatory, the timing couldn't be better.

Listen to the full episode on the Cambridge Tech Podcast and subscribe for weekly updates on the region's most exciting founders and innovations.

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