Durham City Incubator Alumni Raise Over £500k to Tackle the UK’s Renewable Planning Bottleneck
- gracebell7
- 6 hours ago
- 2 min read
Feasibly, an AI-led geospatial startup based in Durham, has secured a £200,000 pre-seed investment from PXN Ventures, bringing their total raised to over £500,000.
From Durham Launch to National Scale
Feasibly launched directly out of the Durham ecosystem after graduates Beth and Leo identified the £1.2bn planning crisis as a critical bottleneck delaying net-zero. With early traction and structured business growth sessions from the Durham City Incubator, the team rapidly solidified their solution. This initial momentum propelled Feasibly forward, securing spots on the prestigious Ordnance Survey and Land Registry Accelerator: Geovation and the PXN Ventures Accelerator.
The team has just moved a step closer to accelerating their mission to close the infrastructure planning gap, raising £200,000 pre-seed from PXN Ventures. This latest capital injection, combined with foundational R&D grants from Innovate UK, brings the company's total funding, raised straight out of university, to over £600,000.
A vision for “critical infrastructure that builds itself”
Feasibly is tackling one of the UK’s biggest and most expensive climate bottlenecks: renewable energy planning. In the UK, over 63% of new renewable projects fail during the planning stages, representing an estimated £1.2bn in wasted investment each year. This creates long, slow cycles that put the UK's net zero targets at risk.
Feasibly’s AI-native geospatial agent replaces the months of manual map analysis, spreadsheets, and consultant reports. The platform allows developers to use natural language search to find and vet sites in seconds.
Leo Thomson, co-founder at Feasibly, said: “A developer can simply ask, ‘Find all ten-hectare plots in the North East, within 3 km of a substation, not on protected land,’ and get an answer instantly We’ve built a geospatial engine to automate the development workflow, de-risking projects before millions are spent.”
Beth Holloway, co-founder at Feasibly, added: “We need to scale energy installations rapidly, and that starts with building in the right places. By automating spatial data analysis and communication, key stakeholders in critical infrastructure can communicate instantly. We are building the AI for infrastructure that builds itself.”
Driving Northern Ambition: Support from Business Durham
The founding team participated in the 2023 Durham City Incubator (DCI) cohort, which was a launchpad for Feasibly’s mission. The program provided links to local government and networking opportunities that secured foundational traction. This regional support was key in shaping the company's ambition: to build a leading Northern business ensuring the UK's net-zero transition is equitable across the UK.
This early success, driven by Durham roots and sustained by vital capital, strategically positions Feasibly to scale the AI platform nationwide, accelerating the deployment of critical net-zero infrastructure by freeing up planning queues.
Find out more about Feasibly
