The People Behind Lumino Capital

Dr. James Hartwell

Dr. James Hartwell co-founded Lumino Capital in 2019 with a conviction that the next generation of transformative companies would emerge from the physical sciences. He leads the firm's investment activity in energy and resource technologies, bringing both deep scientific knowledge and direct operating experience to his work as a board partner.

Prior to Lumino, James held senior positions at TotalEnergies Ventures and Equinor Technology Ventures, where he led early-stage investments totalling over EUR 120 million across clean energy and advanced materials. Before his investment career, he spent eight years as a research scientist at Imperial College London, publishing over 30 peer-reviewed papers in electrochemistry and solid-state physics. He holds a DPhil in Materials Science from the University of Oxford.

James serves on the boards of Solara Dynamics, Helion Path, Protium Systems, and ThermoLogic. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and an advisor to the UK government's Net Zero Innovation Portfolio.

Dr. Sofia Andersen

Dr. Sofia Andersen leads Lumino Capital's investment activity in computing and semiconductor technologies. She brings to the firm an unusual combination of deep technical expertise in computer architecture and hands-on experience scaling enterprise technology companies from seed to exit.

Before joining Lumino Capital, Sofia spent five years as a partner at Notion Capital and three years as VP of Engineering at a quantum photonics company she helped build from an academic spin-out to a successful growth-stage company. Her academic career included a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where her research focused on novel memory hierarchy architectures. She holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from TU Delft and an MSc in Computer Science from KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Sofia currently serves on the boards of AxonCPU Labs, Entangle Systems, CrystalMem, Photon Link, and KernelForge. She serves on the advisory board of the Alan Turing Institute's Venture programme and is a visiting lecturer at University College London.

Dr. Niall Brennan

Dr. Niall Brennan oversees Lumino Capital's investments in health and life sciences. His background spans academic drug discovery, pharmaceutical industry R&D, and biotech venture investing, giving him a comprehensive understanding of the therapeutic development pathway from bench to bedside.

Prior to Lumino, Niall was a principal at Sofinnova Partners in Paris, where he focused on platform biotechnology and precision medicine investments. Before venture, he spent seven years at AstraZeneca in oncology drug discovery, advancing three compounds into clinical development. He completed his MD/PhD at University College Dublin and a clinical fellowship at the Karolinska Institute. He is board-certified in internal medicine and holds a certification in pharmaceutical medicine.

Niall currently serves on the boards of Celara Therapeutics, LuminaDx Biotech, Halcyon Bio, MolPath AI, NanoScalpel, and Biotics Health. He is a member of the British Venture Capital Association's Life Sciences Committee.

Prof. Catherine Beaumont

Professor of Energy Engineering, Imperial College London. Fellow of the Royal Society. Former Chief Scientist at National Grid. Europe's foremost authority on grid-scale energy storage and the electricity system of the future.

Dr. Rajan Mehta

Distinguished Scientist, IBM Research. Pioneer of superconducting qubit architectures. 80+ patents in quantum information processing. Provides quarterly technical reviews of computing portfolio company research programmes.

Prof. Annelise Svensson

Chair of Molecular Medicine, Karolinska Institute. Principal investigator at the Wallenberg Centre for Molecular Medicine. Leading global expert in mRNA therapeutics and targeted delivery. Serves on clinical advisory boards for Celara Therapeutics and Halcyon Bio.

Robert Ashworth

Former CEO of two publicly listed technology companies. Three successful exits with combined enterprise value exceeding $4B. Provides go-to-market and enterprise sales mentorship to Lumino portfolio companies preparing for commercial launch.