Alchera raises £2.7M seed to forecast UK motorway traffic two years out
What's the deal? Alchera TechnologiesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Cambridge startup, has raised £2.7 million in seed funding to bring its AI traffic forecasting software to more councils and highway operators. Maven Capital PartnersDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → led with £2 million, and Innovate UKDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →'s Investor Partnerships programme contributed £700,000.
Who else joined? Maven invested through the British Business Bank's £200 million South West Investment FundDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, alongside the Bayes Entrepreneurship FundDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and The FSE GroupDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. Existing investor Cambridge Applied Research also took part.
What's the endgame? Alchera says its platform can predict motorway traffic up to two years in advance, letting planners schedule roadworks for dates that cause less disruption. It combines customer-owned open data with third-party feeds — bus locations, traffic signals, weather, and air quality — then applies machine learning, including a patent-pending traffic model.
The company claims it cuts analysis time from weeks to seconds. Its customer base has more than doubled over the past year, though it has not disclosed revenue.
Who's using it? Connect PlusDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and Connect Plus ServicesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, which manage the M25 for Highways EnglandDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, won Digital Initiative of the Year at the 2024 British Construction Industry Awards for using Alchera to extend working windows. In Lancashire, the platform examines more than 300 junctions and 85,000 network links to flag bus problems and guide investment.
By the numbers: At £2.7 million, the round ranks in the 95th percentile of all UK seed deals in its sector, based on a sample of 591 comparable rounds.
Chief executive Anna Jordan, who co-founded the company and joined as a software engineer through Cambridge Applied Research, argues transport data is underused. "Right now, these decisions often take weeks; despite the necessary data existing, it's scattered across systems, formats and teams," she said. "When you put that data together, you're no longer making decisions on instinct and incomplete data but with the full picture instead."
What could go wrong? The UK mobility sector is crowded. VivaCityDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → raised £7 million to expand in the US, and Loughborough spinout TransHumanityDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → raised £400,000 in September 2025 for a similar transport analysis tool — suggesting speed alone may not set Alchera apart.
The signal: MarketsandMarkets forecasts the global intelligent transportation systems market will grow from $42.55 billion in 2025 to $55.36 billion by 2030. Alchera's bet is that operators already sitting on the data will pay to turn it into decisions.
Read more: Tech Funding News
Image credit: Alchera Technologies
