Professor Chris Greer who is Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Essex will be joining to share an alternative perspective on supporting commercialisation. Essex has more than 40 active KTPs supported by funding from UKRI to encourage collaboration between businesses and university researchers, the highest number in the UK. It also launched Angels@Essex in 2020, which has since then supported 277 businesses to get pitch ready and secured £16.3m of investment for start-ups across Essex, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, London and the wider region.
The ‘golden triangle’ of Oxford, Cambridge and London account for a third of all UK spinouts and pharma, medtech and AI continue to lead the market. On average it takes a spinout almost 10 years to exit by IPO or acquisition and 41% of spinouts cease activity between 5 and 10 years. Oxford-spinout Adaptimmune listed on NASDAQ in 2015 is the largest spinout IPO to date with a market capitalisation of $1.2b.
Investors play a crucial role in the commercialisation process and development of spinouts and a study by the Royal Academy of Engineering in January 2021 states spinouts raised over £1bn a year in 2020. However, funding is highly concentrated with a surprisingly small number of participating investors.
The live debate in March will be followed by several pitches for investment to Cambridge Angels and Oxford Investment Opportunity Network (OION), a combined network of 630 Angels.
