Strolll stacks £3.6m state loan on IW Capital round

Strolll, a Stafford company that builds augmented reality software for neurological rehabilitation, has raised equity and debt at the same time.

The equity round is led by IW Capital. Cleveland Clinic and Future Planet Capital Regional also took part.

Separately, Innovate UK has provided a £3.6m innovation loan and a £700k Growth Catalyst Investor award. In euros, those figures are given as €4.18m and €813.2k.

The distinction matters. An innovation loan is repaid; it does not dilute the founders or the existing shareholders. The equity does.

The structure means Strolll's largest single line of funding is the one that costs it no ownership.

The company's product is classed as software as a medical device, which places it under regulatory oversight rather than in the general wellness market.

Cleveland Clinic's presence on the cap table is the other notable feature. A clinical institution investing in a rehabilitation product is both capital and a potential route to clinical validation.

The size of the equity round has not been broken out from the state funding. Nor has the loan's repayment schedule or interest terms been published.

For founders in regulated hardware or medical software, the assembly is the lesson rather than the total. Innovate UK loans and Growth Catalyst awards sit alongside a priced round instead of replacing it, and each pound of grant or loan taken early is a pound of equity not sold.

Applying for both in parallel takes time that a bridge round does not. The trade is dilution against process.