The growing importance of this asset class has led to the emergence of a variety of structures - independent funds, jointly-owned vehicles and wholly-owned funds of a single university.
Funds that invest in university spinouts are a growing asset class, having seen strong expansion over the past three years. However, there are few benchmarks focused on specifically these funds.
It is our aim at Global Corporate Venturing to collect enough data on these university venture funds to create a benchmarking tool that fund managers can use to compare their performance with other funds.
For the past two years we have run surveys of university funds and independent fund managers to build a picture of spinout investment vehicles globally.
In the last survey, held in the fourth quarter of 2025, we collected data on more than 20 funds globally, which provide a snapshot of the performance of these funds on a global basis.
Although we do not yet have sufficient data for the benchmarking tool, our most recent survey of this market highlights some trends in university venturing and their impact on the success of spinouts.
Early-stage financial support helps spinouts mature to later stage rounds
A critical function of university venture funds is giving pre-seed funding to early-stage spinouts with limited access to capital.
A key question is whether this early funding does help spinouts progress and subsequently raise further funding rounds. Our survey indicates that this is happening.
Mature university funds that have had time to see their portfolio progress report a high rate of spinouts going on to raise series A rounds. This indicates they are succeeding in helping spinouts get through the so-called “valley of death” from proof of concept to early-stage funding.
UK university spinout investor Parkwalk, for example, has invested in 209 spinouts since it was founded in 2009. Of those investments, the majority (200), have gone on to raise seed and series A rounds. Oxford Science Entreprises, the independent investment firm that commits capital to University of Oxford spinouts, has invested in 98 spinouts and 100% of those have gone on to raise seed or series A rounds.
An ecosystem is building of mature and new funds
The boom in university venture funds is a relatively recent phenomenon, but a handful of funds have been around since the 1990s and even 1980s, showing the resilience of the sector. The oldest fund submitting responses – QUIBIS, the investment arm of Queen’s University Belfast – was founded in 1984. The Irish university-owned fund has invested in 50 spinouts, 20% of which have gone on to exit. Its internal rate of return is 10%.
The past three years have seen an acceleration of university venture fund formations.
Funds established in the past five years include the Eagle Fund, a $12m investment vehicle jointly owned by La Trobe University in Australia and the Australian state government of Victoria. Another is the Future Health Fund, a $100m investment vehicle launched in 2025 that invests in spinouts from NUS Medicine, a Singapore medical university.
The past three years have seen an acceleration of university venture fund formations as academic research is increasingly viewed as a seed bed for technological innovation.
A mix of independent and university-owned funds characterise the sector
The spinout investment industry is a combination of independent funds and funds owned by academic institutions. No fund type dominates, indicating a balance of financial support available.
Many of the larger universities have their own fund, which is particularly the case for academic institutions that have a large flow of potential deals. Oxford Science Enterprises sees around 50 new investment opportunities a year, for example, from the University of Oxford, one of the UK’s most prolific academic institutions for spinning out technologies.
Smaller universities tend to access financing by joining with other universities regionally to form a joint fund – a useful structure for academic institutions that may not have adequate deal flow to support their own funds.
This model of jointly owned funds is common in Europe, particularly in the UK. Investment firms partnering with several universities in the same region include Northern Gritstone, which takes equity stakes in spinouts from the northern English universities of Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool. Qantx Squared, another UK spinout investor, takes equity stakes in ventures from six academic institutions in the UK’s southwest.
As the asset class grows in significance, a variety of structures are emerging, from independent funds, jointly owned vehicles and wholly owned funds of a single university.
Some funds have national coverage such as Uniseed, an investor owned by nine Australian universities and government-owned lab CSIRO. The $36m University Technology Fund is a similar set-up as an investment partner to all universities in South Africa. QBIC, a $104m fund, invests in spinouts from several universities in Belgium.
Jointly owned funds are rarer in the US, where it is more common to have university-owned and independent funds affiliated with a single university. An example is Wilson Hill, a $50m fund affiliated with the California Institute of Technology, which has invested in 18 companies and sees 25 new investment opportunities from the university annually.
An exception is the University System of Maryland Momentum Fund, a $16m fund that invests in spinouts from 12 academic institutions in the US state of Maryland.
The variety of different types of spinouts funds indicates the diversity of options to structure financial support for spinouts.
The takeaway
University venture funds are growing in importance as a fundamental stepping stone in the commercial journey of a spinout based on academic research. As the asset class grows in significance, a variety of structures are emerging, from independent funds, jointly owned vehicles and wholly owned funds of a single university.
The continued growth of the sector reflects the increasing interest in deep tech and frontier science-based startups for investors, as well as the growing maturity in the ways universities are helping translate academic research into commercial enterprises.
More work needs to be done, however, to benchmark funds and explore which models and structures are giving spinouts the best start.
The full report includes an updated list comparing selected global university funds as well as some of the more prominent university fund launches between 2025 to early 2026.
