Whitespace, a Belfast-based AI company developing sovereign and secure technology for the UK’s most critical regulated sectors, has completed a £10 million growth capital financing (£10M). Next Wave Partners and its co-investors, White Cloud and Beach Equity’s £10 million investment will accelerate Whitespace’s strategic growth and the next phase of Collective – the AI operating system for high-risk environments, now powering multiple Defence and National Security missions.
The funding round strengthens Whitespace’s ability to scale strategically to meet growing demand across Defence, National Security, and other high-assurance regulated sectors.
Founded in 2015 by Paul Jenkinson and Andrew McCartney, Whitespace began as a small team of engineers and designers building bespoke AI capabilities for Defence and Enterprise clients. Ten years on, it has evolved into one of the UK’s leading innovators in sovereign AI – delivering technology that now underpins some of the nation’s most complex and high-risk operations.
At the heart of this expansion is Collective, Whitespace’s flagship sovereign AI platform, developed entirely in the UK and already deployed across critical live environments. Designed for settings where security, trust, and control are essential, Collective enables organisations to build, deploy, govern, and scale AI safely across cloud, edge, on-premise, and fully air-gapped systems.
Paul Jenkinson, CEO of Whitespace, said: “This raise gives us the capacity to deliver sovereign AI capability at national scale – building technology that the UK can trust, control and deploy safely across its most critical systems. Sovereignty isn’t a slogan; it’s an infrastructure choice, and this investment allows us to move faster on that mission.”
Paul Skipworth, who will represent Next Wave Partners and White Cloud on the Board of Whitespace, said: “Defence and linked regulated organisations are facing unprecedented challenges requiring the rapid development of AI solutions that work in challenging environments. All this has created a huge opportunity for agile UK-based defence AI companies such as Whitespace. It is a privilege for us to support and work with the world-class Whitespace team as the company scales to serve its sovereign UK and international clients.”
The new funding will accelerate product development, strengthen engineering and delivery capacity at Whitespace’s Belfast headquarters, broaden its leadership team with additional expertise, and expand customer success and delivery programmes across the UK and internationally.
Whitespace’s technology is already operational within UK Defence, supported by a growing network of partnerships that advance the UK’s sovereign AI readiness. The company is also among a select group of four SMEs awarded an enterprise agreement by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) – a framework designed to streamline collaboration and procurement with trusted UK technology companies across the defence ecosystem.
Jenkinson added: “We started as a small team of problem-solvers who believed that the UK should own its own AI infrastructure. Ten years later, that belief has become reality – our capabilities are now live, and this investment takes us from pioneering to scaling.”
The company’s long-term vision extends beyond deployment toward superintelligence – a future where trusted AI systems amplify human capability rather than replace it, helping decision-makers think faster, learn continuously, and act with confidence in complex environments.
This raise propels Whitespace into its next stage of growth – moving from pioneering to scaling – and positions the company to play a pivotal role in ensuring the UK’s sovereign AI capability remains both secure and globally competitive.
