{"id":563869,"date":"2026-05-03T10:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T10:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/563869\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T10:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T10:58:10","slug":"uk-invention-agency-grants-50m-of-public-money-to-us-tech-and-venture-capital-firms-research-and-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/563869\/","title":{"rendered":"UK \u2018invention agency\u2019 grants \u00a350m of public money to US tech and venture capital firms | Research and development"},"content":{"rendered":"

Britain\u2019s \u201cinvention agency\u201d has pledged \u00a350m of UK taxpayer money to US tech companies and venture capital projects.<\/p>\n

Dreamed up by Dominic Cummings to fund \u201ccrazy\u201d ideas, the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria) is meant to \u201crestore Britain\u2019s place as a scientific superpower<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

But a joint investigation by the Guardian and Democracy for Sale, an investigative website, has established that more than an eighth of the agency\u2019s \u00a3400m in research and development funding over the past two years has gone to 14 US tech companies and venture capital groups, in some cases, with no clear return for the UK or Aria.<\/p>\n

One of these companies, Rain Neuromorphics, is also backed by the OpenAI chief executive, Sam Altman, and was reported<\/a> to be near collapse last year, shortly after winning Aria money. It did not respond to a request for comment; two of its founders appear to have left the company. The Guardian understands it is still delivering a project for Aria.<\/p>\n

Cecilia Rikap, an economics professor at University College London, said: \u201cDisguised as promoting moonshot projects, the government is using taxpayer money to further expand the power of the US tech ecosystem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a surprise coming from a government that has agreed to be not only Trump\u2019s, but also big tech\u2019s, footman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chi Onwurah<\/a>, the chair of the Commons science and technology committee, said: \u201cThese reports on Aria\u2019s spending underline the need for stronger scrutiny of the organisation, something its chair acknowledged when he appeared in front of my committee in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Aria Act requires the organisation to benefit the UK by driving economic growth, supporting scientific innovation or improving quality of life. It\u2019s unclear how funding US-based venture capital and tech firms meets these aims, or aligns with the government\u2019s commitment to regional innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to a query from the Guardian, Aria said its \u201cmission is to unlock breakthroughs that benefit the UK, which means funding the best ideas across universities, startups and private companies. Over 80% of our funding goes to UK-based teams \u2014 and where we fund international organisations, it is to transfer scientific capabilities to the UK, with contractual protections ensuring the benefits flow back here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Transparency disclosures show it has spent a total of \u00a323m on nine US tech firms. It gave an additional \u00a36m to another US company, Normal Computing, which established itself in the UK only weeks before receiving the grant.<\/p>\n

And it has given \u00a329.4m to three US venture capital groups, including Pillar VC, tasked with developing a \u201cdiverse range of bespoke activities\u201d to identify and support early-stage UK tech talent.<\/p>\n

These companies include the CIC Venture Cafe Global Institute, a US business that hosts events for entrepreneurs and has received \u00a35.4m to run \u201cventure cafes\u201d across the UK; and the US firm Fifty Years, which will run a 14-week course that teaches scientists how to start companies. It will earn \u00a37m to run the course six times for 50 students.<\/p>\n

Pillar VC incorporated in the UK one day before Aria gave it a\u00a310.9m contract. One other US group, Renaissance Philanthropy, backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, also incorporated in the UK shortly before receiving \u00a313.3m from Aria.<\/p>\n

\u201cRenaissance Philanthropy is excited to be working with several governments on building their R&D ecosystems including the UK, Germany, Japan, and the US,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been progressing several UK-based, UK-focused programmes in addition to the Activation Partnership with Aria.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to a query from the Guardian, Normal Computing said building a UK presence was a \u201ccontractual condition\u201d for the funding, and highlighted its contributions to the economy: \u201cNormal has reinvested approximately 150% of the award value back into the UK through salaries, operations and continued growth,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Fifty Years said: \u201cWe thought UK scientists would benefit from our 5050 programme to help them start companies, but as a small 12-person team, we wouldn\u2019t have been able to bring it to the UK without Aria\u2019s partnership,\u201d adding that it had funded two companies that have come out of its UK programme.<\/p>\n

CIC said: \u201cWe established a UK entity in order to operate efficiently within the country and pay all applicable local taxes,\u201d adding that the primary beneficiaries of its work are the \u201cUK innovation ecosystem and UK taxpayers\u201d.<\/p>\n

Pillar did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

When Aria was set up, it was controversially exempt from freedom of information laws, and, for the first years of its operation, it published no details about its grantees. Set up to be free from \u201cred tape\u201d<\/a>, it remains unclear if Aria has strict guidelines on how much of its funding can go to non-UK businesses.<\/p>\n

A recent report by the environmental group ETC described Aria as \u201cbringing Silicon Valley\u2019s free-market fundamentalism and its \u2018move fast and break things\u2019 ethos to disrupt the buttoned-up British science establishment\u201d.<\/p>\n

A number of the US companies Aria has funded appear to be early-stage ventures. Several of these, such as MorphoAI and Sangtera, already have powerful US backers including the incubator Y Combinator and theNational Science Foundation, a federal agency.<\/p>\n

Were they to achieve a breakthrough, it is unclear how, or if, that advance would directly benefit the UK. ARIA insisted that it has \u201ccontractual protections\u201d ensuring benefits flow back to Britain, but it is not clear how this works in practice.<\/p>\n

The agency\u2019s \u201cstandard approach\u201d is not to take shares or intellectual property rights in the companies that it funds, according to its website. The Guardian understands ARIA requires a royalty fee to be paid to the UK on any IP commercialised outside the UK.<\/p>\n

In response to a query from the Guardian, MorphoAI said: \u201cThe Aria grant has created incredible opportunity for MorphoAI, allowing us to grow into the UK. Over 50% of our employees are now based in the UK, with the majority of our operations running from our London office, the fastest growing part of the business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sangtera did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Onwurah said Aria\u2019s choice to fund US tech companies potentially came at the cost of funding untapped potential in the UK. \u201cAria allocates only a small share of its funding outside London and the south-east \u2013 the West Midlands, for example, receives just 0.8%. It\u2019s disappointing to see reports of Aria\u2019s substantial investment overseas whilst such stark regional imbalances persist at home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Rikap said US tech companies \u201care intellectual monopolies that present themselves as contributing to public knowledge, all the while finding ways to monetise it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cData and knowledge are co-produced with universities and local companies but always following the priorities of big tech, so that whatever new research is developed, it remains within the platforms and ecosystems that they control.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s \u201cinvention agency\u201d has pledged \u00a350m of UK taxpayer money to US tech companies and venture capital projects.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-563869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}