Maven Leads £2M Investment in Alchera’s £2.7M Seed Round for AI Traffic Forecasting

Alchera Technologies, a Cambridge-based transport technology startup, has raised £2.7 million in seed funding to expand its artificial intelligence-powered traffic forecasting and transport analytics platform. Maven Capital Partners led the investment with £2 million, while Innovate UK contributed £700,000 through its Investor Partnerships programme.

Founded in 2016, Alchera develops software that helps councils, highway operators and transport planners turn fragmented data into insights for infrastructure planning. Its platform combines existing transport and environmental datasets with machine learning to identify network problems, analyse traffic patterns and forecast future conditions.

The company says its technology can predict motorway traffic up to two years in advance, helping operators plan roadworks during periods that are expected to cause less disruption. The new funding will support product development, engineering expansion and faster deployment for customers.

How Alchera Plans to Improve Transport Planning

Transport infrastructure decisions often require teams to analyse information spread across multiple systems, formats and departments. Alchera aims to simplify that process by bringing existing data sources together in a single analytical platform.

The software combines customer-owned open data with third-party information, including bus locations, traffic signals, vehicle movements, weather conditions and air quality measurements. It cleans and processes these datasets before applying machine learning models to identify patterns, highlight potential problems and forecast future outcomes.

Transport teams can access the resulting insights through dashboards and application programming interfaces (APIs). According to Alchera, its platform can reduce analysis time from weeks to seconds.

The company's approach focuses on making better use of data that transport operators already possess rather than requiring them to deploy an entirely new hardware network.

Predicting Traffic to Plan Roadworks

One of Alchera's applications involves the M25 motorway in the United Kingdom. The company provides traffic forecasts intended to help road operators identify suitable periods for maintenance and construction work.

The aim is to give planners a longer-term view of expected traffic conditions before scheduling roadworks. Better timing can help reduce disruption for commuters and other road users while supporting more efficient infrastructure maintenance.

Alchera's collaboration with Connect Plus and Connect Plus Services, which manage the M25 under arrangements involving the UK's national highways authority, received the Digital Initiative of the Year award at the 2024 British Construction Industry Awards.

The recognition highlights the use of transport data and analytics to improve infrastructure planning. However, the potential benefits depend on how operators incorporate forecasts into their roadworks schedules and operational decisions.

Supporting Bus Network Planning in Lancashire

Alchera also works on public transport analysis. In Lancashire, its platform examines more than 300 junctions and 85,000 network links to identify bus-related problems and help authorities decide where investment may be needed.

This application demonstrates how the same data-driven approach can support decisions beyond motorway maintenance. Transport authorities can use network analysis to identify areas requiring attention and evaluate where limited infrastructure budgets may have the greatest impact.

By bringing different datasets together, Alchera aims to give decision-makers a more comprehensive understanding of transport networks before committing resources to changes or upgrades.

Maven Capital Partners Leads the £2.7M Seed Round

Maven Capital Partners invested £2 million in the seed round through the British Business Bank's £200 million South West Investment Fund. The round also included the Bayes Entrepreneurship Fund, The FSE Group and existing investor Cambridge Applied Research.

Innovate UK's Investor Partnerships programme contributed a further £700,000.

Rafi Khan, an investment manager at Maven Capital Partners, said transport and infrastructure operators have substantial amounts of data but often lack the tools needed to turn it into timely, confident decisions. He described Alchera's platform as addressing an underserved part of the transport and infrastructure market.

The funding will primarily support further product development, particularly in engineering and product functions, alongside faster customer deployment.

Alchera currently has a team of 15 and has onboarded three new employees since the funding round closed. The company also reports that women represent approximately one-third of its overall team, leadership and board.

Anna Jordan's Journey from Software Engineer to CEO

Anna Jordan, co-founder and CEO of Alchera Technologies, joined the business through Cambridge Applied Research, an organisation that specialises in establishing startups.

Jordan initially worked as a software engineer and contributed to several startups created by the organisation, including Alchera. By April 2021, she had become the company's head of operations and co-founder.

Jordan has emphasised the importance of making transport data more accessible and useful for decision-making. Everyday journeys depend on decisions about roads, bus routes and infrastructure, but those decisions can be slowed by fragmented information and lengthy analysis processes.

Alchera's mission is to help transport organisations make those decisions using a more complete picture of their networks.

Competition in the AI Mobility Market

Alchera operates in a competitive transport technology sector where companies are applying AI and data analytics to improve traffic management and infrastructure planning.

London-based VivaCity develops roadside AI sensors and raised £7 million to support its expansion into the United States. Unlike Alchera's software-led approach using existing data, VivaCity also provides its own hardware.

TransHumanity, a company spun out of Loughborough University, raised £400,000 in September 2025 for AptIq, an AI tool designed to accelerate transport analysis. GoodVision, a London-based startup, had raised €3.7 million by early 2023.

These companies illustrate different approaches to transport analytics, from roadside sensing to software that processes existing datasets. Alchera's ability to demonstrate reliable forecasts, customer value and sustained adoption will be important as it competes for contracts with transport authorities and infrastructure operators.

The wider intelligent transportation systems market also provides a potential growth opportunity. MarketsandMarkets forecasts that the global market will grow from $42.55 billion in 2025 to $55.36 billion by 2030. This estimate covers a broader market than Alchera's specific segment and should not be interpreted as a forecast of the company's own growth.

Alchera's Next Growth Targets

Following the seed round, Alchera plans to accelerate product development and expand its customer deployments. Over the next 12 months, it aims to double its recurring customer base.

Its longer-term objective is to become a multi-million-pound annual recurring revenue business within 36 months and establish itself as a leading evidence provider for transport infrastructure decisions.

The company has not publicly disclosed its revenue, so its current financial scale cannot be assessed from the available information. Its stated growth goals will depend on converting demand from councils and highway operators into recurring contracts and expanding its presence across the transport sector.

The £2.7 million seed round gives Alchera additional capital to develop its platform and pursue these targets. Its progress will ultimately depend on whether AI-powered forecasting can deliver practical, measurable benefits for the organisations responsible for keeping transport networks operating efficiently