# Duncan Johnson

> Duncan Johnson is a seed investor at Northern Gritstone backing Software and Health Care. See 31 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Northern Gritstone](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/northern-gritstone)
- Total investments: 31
- Last investment: Jul 2026
- Lead investor: 74%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duncan-johnson-8527432a

Duncan Johnson is a seed investor at Northern Gritstone focused on Software and Health Care. Duncan Johnson is the Chief Executive Officer at Northern Gritstone.

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | 7 | 23% |
| Health Care | 5 | 16% |
| Electronics | 4 | 13% |
| Medical | 3 | 10% |
| Life Science | 3 | 10% |

49 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 17 | 55% |
| Series A | 8 | 26% |
| Pre-Seed | 3 | 10% |
| Venture - Series Unknown | 1 | 3% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Pixel-Flo | Pixel-Flo is developing a fluidic self-assembly mass transfer process that uses a slot-die mechanism and meniscus forces to continuously position microLEDs onto substrates. This backplane-agnostic technology is designed to assemble red, green, and blue LEDs in a single step for mass-market display manufacturing. | $7M | Seed | Jul 09, 2026 |  |
| Silveray | Silveray develop affordable large-area direct conversion detectors for the X-ray imaging market. | $6.6M | Series A | Jun 17, 2026 |  |
| AmpliSi | AmpliSi focuses on sustainable porous silicon anodes for lithium-ion batteries, with the goal of replacing graphite to increase energy density. | $2.7M | Pre-Seed | Mar 12, 2026 |  |
| Cytotrait | Cytotrait focuses on the development of novel traits for food and agriculture. | $4M | Seed | Mar 09, 2026 |  |
| Optalysys | Optalysys solves the fundamental limitations of conventional computing. Optalysys develops optical AI systems that accelerate the demanding deep learning and pattern recognition tasks at groundbreaking speeds but at a fraction of the energy consumption of traditional computing hardware.Optalysys' embeddable technology will enablesupercomputing capability in Edge and mobile devices. | $30.9M | Series A | Jan 22, 2026 |  |
| IVFmicro | IVFmicro is a Microfluidic systems for delivering fertility treatment, and optimize methods for Assisted Reproduction Technologies. | $4.7M | Pre-Seed | Dec 15, 2025 |  |
| Sitehop | Sitehop is a technology company that develops cutting-edge cyber-security and networking solutions. Sitehop's custom FPGA solutions are used to optimize and accelerate cloud/telco networks. | $10M | Series A | Oct 09, 2025 |  |
| PhovIR Technologies | PhovIR Technologies is a deep-tech firm that specializes in miniaturized near-infrared (NIR) material analytics. | $5.4M | Seed | Aug 19, 2025 |  |
| Apini Therapeutics | Apini is a creating novel small chemical two most prevalent types of inflammatory bowel disease. | $2.4M | Seed | Jun 11, 2025 |  |
| Literal Labs | Literal Labs is transforming artificial intelligence with a breakthrough, logic-based architecture that is vastly faster, inherently explainable, and dramatically more energy-efficient than conventional neural networks.Originating from years of academic research and spun out of Newcastle University, Literal Labs replaces the power-hungry matrixmultipliers of traditional AI with a radically different approach: logic-based networks founded on propositional logic, Tsetlin machines, and full binarisation. This enables models to achieve inference speeds up to 250x faster than XGBoost, 54x faster than neural networks, consume 52x less energy, and offer built-in explainability—without sacrificing performance.The company is led by former Arm VP Noel Hurley and was established by two world-leading experts in logic-based AI, Dr. Alex Yakovlev and Dr. Rishad Shafik. Together, they are pioneering a new standard for intelligent systems: efficient, transparent, and engineered for real-world constraints.Literal Labs is dedicated to building the most computationally efficient and energy-conscious AI architecture on the market. | $6.2M | Pre-Seed | Jun 02, 2025 |  |

10 of 31 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Empirical Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/empirical-ventures) — VC Fund, 5 deals together
- [ACF Investors](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/angel-cofund) — VC Fund, 4 deals together
- [Octopus Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/octopus-ventures) — VC Fund, 4 deals together
- [Praetura Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/praetura-capital) — VC Fund, 4 deals together
- [Catapult Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/catapult-venture-managers) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Par Equity](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/par-equity) — VC Fund, 3 deals together

## About Northern Gritstone

VC Fund · Leeds, United Kingdom

Northern Gritstone is an investment firm focused on investing in advanced materials, energy, health technology and cognitive computation.

1 contacts available at Northern Gritstone.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Duncan Johnson | Chief Executive Officer | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/duncan-johnson-90e3 |

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## FAQ

### What does Duncan Johnson invest in?

Duncan Johnson invests primarily in Software, Health Care and Electronics startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 31 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United Kingdom. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### When did Duncan Johnson last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Duncan Johnson closed in Jul 2026. Shizune tracks 31 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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