Dominic Cummings on his way to a science and technology committee hearing in March 2021 to discuss plans to set up Aria. Photograph: Hollie Adams/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenDominic Cummings on his way to a science and technology committee hearing in March 2021 to discuss plans to set up Aria. Photograph: Hollie Adams/Getty ImagesUK ‘invention agency’ grants £50m of public money to US tech and venture capital firmsExclusive: Brainchild of Dominic Cummings, Aria is aimed at funding ‘crazy’ scientific projects to benefit the UK
Britain’s “invention agency” has pledged £50m of UK taxpayer money to US tech companies and venture capital projects.
Dreamed up by Dominic Cummings to fund “crazy” ideas, the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria) is meant to “restore Britain’s place as a scientific superpower”.
But a joint investigation by the Guardian and Democracy for Sale, an investigative website, has established that more than an eighth of the agency’s £400m 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.
One of these companies, Rain Neuromorphics, is also backed by the OpenAI chief executive, Sam Altman, and was reported 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.
Cecilia Rikap, an economics professor at University College London, said: “Disguised as promoting moonshot projects, the government is using taxpayer money to further expand the power of the US tech ecosystem.
“This is not a surprise coming from a government that has agreed to be not only Trump’s, but also big tech’s, footman.”
Chi Onwurah, the chair of the Commons science and technology committee, said: “These reports on Aria’s spending underline the need for stronger scrutiny of the organisation, something its chair acknowledged when he appeared in front of my committee in 2025.
“The Aria Act requires the organisation to benefit the UK by driving economic growth, supporting scientific innovation or improving quality of life. It’s unclear how funding US-based venture capital and tech firms meets these aims, or aligns with the government’s commitment to regional innovation.”
In response to a query from the Guardian, Aria said its “mission 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 — and where we fund international organisations, it is to transfer scientific capabilities to the UK, with contractual protections ensuring the benefits flow back here.”
Transparency disclosures show it has spent a total of £23m on nine US tech firms. It gave an additional £6m to another US company, Normal Computing, which established itself in the UK only weeks before receiving the grant.
And it has given £29.4m to three US venture capital groups, including Pillar VC, tasked with developing a “diverse range of bespoke activities” to identify and support early-stage UK tech talent.
These companies include the CIC Venture Cafe Global Institute, a US business that hosts events for entrepreneurs and has received £5.4m to run “venture cafes” 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 £7m to run the course six times for 50 students.
Read morePillar VC incorporated in the UK one day before Aria gave it a£10.9m contract. One other US group, Renaissance Philanthropy, backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, also incorporated in the UK shortly before receiving £13.3m from Aria.
“Renaissance Philanthropy is excited to be working with several governments on building their R&D ecosystems including the UK, Germany, Japan, and the US,” it said.
“We have been progressing several UK-based, UK-focused programmes in addition to the Activation Partnership with Aria.”
In response to a query from the Guardian, Normal Computing said building a UK presence was a “contractual condition” for the funding, and highlighted its contributions to the economy: “Normal has reinvested approximately 150% of the award value back into the UK through salaries, operations and continued growth,” it said.
Fifty Years said: “We thought UK scientists would benefit from our 5050 programme to help them start companies, but as a small 12-person team, we wouldn’t have been able to bring it to the UK without Aria’s partnership,” adding that it had funded two companies that have come out of its UK programme.
CIC said: “We established a UK entity in order to operate efficiently within the country and pay all applicable local taxes,” adding that the primary beneficiaries of its work are the “UK innovation ecosystem and UK taxpayers”.
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 “red tape”, it remains unclear if Aria has strict guidelines on how much of its funding can go to non-UK businesses.
A recent report by the environmental group ETC described Aria as “bringing Silicon Valley’s free-market fundamentalism and its ‘move fast and break things’ ethos to disrupt the buttoned-up British science establishment”.
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.
Were they to achieve a breakthrough, it is unclear how, or if, that advance would directly benefit the UK. ARIA insisted that it has “contractual protections” ensuring benefits flow back to Britain, but it is not clear how this works in practice.
The agency’s “standard approach” 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.
In response to a query from the Guardian, MorphoAI said: “The 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.”
Sangtera did not respond to a request for comment.
Onwurah said Aria’s choice to fund US tech companies potentially came at the cost of funding untapped potential in the UK. “Aria allocates only a small share of its funding outside London and the south-east – the West Midlands, for example, receives just 0.8%. It’s disappointing to see reports of Aria’s substantial investment overseas whilst such stark regional imbalances persist at home,” she said.
Rikap said US tech companies “are intellectual monopolies that present themselves as contributing to public knowledge, all the while finding ways to monetise it”.
“Data 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.”
