Derry's SeeMe lands £75K Innovate UK grant to build AI photo-archive platform
What's the deal? Derry-based startup SeeMeDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has secured a £75,000 Women in Innovation Award from Innovate UKDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. Founder and chief executive officer Mary Blake was one of just 61 winners chosen from a record 1,590 UK applicants — and one of only two from Northern Ireland.
What's the endgame? SeeMe is an AI-enabled personal archive platform that turns photo collections into what the company calls "multi-layered narratives." The aim is to preserve the stories and emotions behind images rather than leave them as context-less dumps on phones or in the cloud.
What's the money for? The grant funds a 12-month project called SNAP — the SeeMe Narrated Archives Platform. It will take the existing technology through its next phase of co-design and validation. Winners also receive a year of business support, training, and networking.
Why now? The awards, run by Innovate UK, are in their tenth year and back founders whose ideas align with high-growth sectors in the UK's Industrial Strategy. Since 2016, more than £15 million has gone to 260 women founders.
Blake, originally from Enniskillen, previously held senior roles across the cultural, marketing, and public sectors, including work with National MuseumsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
She framed the win as proof a global company can grow outside traditional hubs. Being one of 61 winners "is huge validation of the work we have done to date," she said, adding that the award backs a company "set to grow globally but which are being built in a local region like Derry City."
The signal: Non-dilutive grants remain a key lever for early-stage founders outside major funding centres. For SeeMe, the award buys a year of runway and validation to prove its technology across families, elder care, and diaspora communities before chasing larger capital.
Read more: ireland-live.ie
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
