Dr. Ying Lia Li
Dr. Ying Lia Li is the founder and CEO of Zero Point Motion, a Bristol-based deep-tech company she founded to bring quantum-inspired precision to everyday navigation and positioning. A physicist by training, Lia studied at Imperial College London before completing her PhD at University College London in optomechanics — the science of using light to detect mechanical motion with extraordinary sensitivity — and working at the Advanced Technology Centre at BAE Systems.
Lia founded Zero Point Motion in 2020 to commercialise technology she pioneered during her research: chipscale sensors that harness the ultra-low noise properties of light, combined with the mass-manufacturing capability of silicon photonics and MEMS technology, to produce accelerometers and gyroscopes 100 times more sensitive than conventional sensors. She was awarded the 2021 Institute of Physics Clifford Paterson Medal and the 2022 Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award for her breakthrough work.
In 2025, Zero Point Motion raised £4 million in a pre-Series A round backed by SCVC, Foresight Group, and Verve Ventures, emerging from stealth to target defence, autonomous vehicles, drones, and industrial applications where GPS is unavailable or unreliable. Lia grew up in Bristol and is proud to build her company at the city's Quantum Technologies Innovation Centre — the same institution that nurtured her entrepreneurial journey through its QTEC pre-incubation programme.
