Opteran

Opteran is a Sheffield, UK-based deep-tech company founded in 2019 as a spin-out from the University of Sheffield's Department of Computer Science. The company was founded by Professor James Marshall and Dr. Alex Cope, building on eight years of research into reverse-engineering the neural algorithms of insect brains, with CEO and co-founder David Rajan joining at inception. Opteran's core technology, branded Natural Intelligence (NI), replicates the lightweight neural circuits that evolved in insects over 600 million years to enable general-purpose autonomous navigation using optic flow, visual SLAM, and reactive decision-making — all without GPU-scale compute, cloud connectivity, or large training datasets.

This approach delivers robust autonomy in GPS-denied, computationally constrained, and dynamic environments. The company's product suite includes: Opteran Sense (visual perception and depth), Opteran Navigate (SLAM-based navigation), Opteran Decision (reactive decision engine), and Opteran Control (autonomous control for reactive behaviors). Applications span indoor inspection drones, ground robots, autonomous vehicles, and space rovers.

Key partnerships include Flyability (indoor inspection drones) and Airbus Defence and Space, with European Space Agency and UK Space Agency testing Opteran Mind in space rover trials. The company has raised approximately US$15 million in seed funding (2020-2022) and maintains offices in Sheffield, London, and Boston (USA). Opteran was awarded GBP 2.1M from Innovate UK for its insect-vision-inspired approach to autonomy.