**Deep-tech sector**

# Graphene Companies and the Public Funding Behind Them

A sourced look at UK graphene companies and the public R&D funding they've won — from Paragraf to First Graphene — and what it takes for a deep-tech company to get funded.

Graphene — a single layer of carbon atoms, stronger than steel and a remarkable conductor — went from a 2004 lab curiosity to a commercial industry. Behind that industry is a long trail of **public R&D funding**: governments betting on companies willing to do the hard, uncertain work of turning a wonder-material into products.

This is a sourced look at UK graphene companies and the funding they've won, drawn from **UKRI's Gateway to Research**, the official record of publicly funded UK research and innovation. Every figure links to its primary source. The point isn't just who's who — it's to show, concretely, that technical R&D in this field *gets funded*, and what that funding looks like.

## Who's been funded, and for what

The companies span the whole graphene value chain — producers, formulators, and the firms building graphene into real products:

- **Paragraf** — the UK's highest-profile graphene-electronics company, building graphene transistors and sensors. Its Innovate UK-backed work includes **£718,617** for *MaGIC Memory*, a project to build a novel semiconductor memory using graphene electronic devices, and an earlier **£159,899** collaboration with Queen Mary University of London on graphene-OLED displays.
- **First Graphene** — a leading graphene producer, funded (**£7,764**) to measure graphene dispersion in **cement**, part of decarbonising one of the world's most carbon-intensive industries.
- **Levidian Nanosystems** — **£12,430** for *iFLAG*, fast bulk analysis of graphene as production scales from lab to commercial volumes.
- **Haydale Composite Solutions** — **£89,265** to analyse graphene dispersion in laminated composites, a core quality problem for graphene-reinforced materials.
- **Integrated Graphene** — **£10,122** for gas sensing on a novel 3D graphene-foam electrode produced in seconds.
- **Nuonano** — **£260,711** for a variable-volume reactor to mass-produce graphene for lithium-ion batteries.
- **Universal Matter (Applied Graphene Materials)**, **Thomas Swan**, **Zapgocharger**, **Green Graphene**, **NetComposites**, and others round out a field where most funded work targets a specific technical bottleneck — dispersion, quality control, scalable production — rather than graphene in the abstract.

## Funding on record

All figures from UKRI Gateway to Research (Innovate UK-led projects). Each reference links to the official record:

| Company | Project | Amount | Period |
| --- | --- | ---: | --- |
| Paragraf | Graphene electronic memory devices | £718,617 | 2025–26 |
| Nuonano | Reactor for graphene battery material | £260,711 | 2024–25 |
| Paragraf + QMUL | Graphene-OLED display | £159,899 | 2021–23 |
| Universal Matter | GraphFilm | £119,936 | 2015–16 |
| NetComposites | Inkjet-printed functionalised graphene | £112,679 | 2016–17 |
| Haydale | Graphene dispersion in composites | £89,265 | 2017–18 |
| Emyrus | Graphene functionalisation | £69,594 | 2017–18 |
| Green Graphene | Sustainable graphene medical textiles | £48,846 | 2022–23 |
| DZP Technologies | Laser-assisted graphene patterning | £24,638 | 2014 |
| Levidian Nanosystems | Bulk graphene analysis | £12,430 | 2017–18 |
| Integrated Graphene | Graphene-foam gas sensing | £10,122 | 2019 |
| First Graphene | Graphene in cement | £7,764 | 2022–23 |

(A selection; one company may hold several awards. See the [source data](https://gtr.ukri.org/) for the full record.)

## The pattern: funded work is *defined, technical* work

Notice what these grants fund. Not "graphene" as a theme — a **specific technical uncertainty**: can we disperse it evenly in cement? Can we pattern it with a laser? Can we mass-produce it in a variable-volume reactor? Each project names a problem a competent professional couldn't simply look up, and proposes to resolve it experimentally. That's exactly the definition of [qualifying R&D](/guides/what-counts-as-rd) — and it's why these companies were fundable.

## Could your company be on a list like this?

If you're doing genuine technical R&D — in graphene or anything else — there's a good chance some of it is fundable, through grants like these or through [R&D tax credits](/guides/rd-tax-credits-by-country) that recover a share of what you spend. The companies above didn't get funded for having a good idea; they got funded for **defined technical work they could describe and, ultimately, evidence**.

That's the catch that decides every grant and every claim: the funding rests on a defensible record of what technical uncertainty you tackled, who worked on it, and what you found — captured as the work happens. For how to build that record, see [how to document R&D for a claim](/guides/how-to-document-rd-for-a-claim) and the broader [non-dilutive funding toolkit](/guides/non-dilutive-funding-for-deep-tech).

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**Source.** Funding data from [UKRI Gateway to Research](https://gtr.ukri.org/). Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Figures reflect the record on 22 June 2026.