Portfolio companies of the SetSquared Bristol incubator program together raised more than £130m ($180m) in funding during 2017, an increase of £90m on 2016.
SetSquared Bristol said last year was its most successful since the program launched in 2003, and had generated 1,300 jobs for the wider region.
The incubator is part of the SetSquared academic partnership between the universities of Bristol, Bath, Surrey, Exeter and Southampton, and includes members from 37 industries.
SetSquared Bristol participants include wireless communications technology developer Zeetta Networks, a UK-based spinout from University of Bristol that obtained $2.1m in funding from investors including IP Group in July 2017.
Other portfolio companies are UK-based voice-capture technology developer Xmos, another Bristol spinout that raised a $15m series E round in September 2017, and machine intelligence technology developer Graphcore, which secured a $50m series C round two months later.
SetSquared Bristol expanded its purview in 2017, adding a partnership with cloud software and application producer Oracle called the Start-Up Cloud Accelerator, as well as IoT Boost, an internet-of-things initiative with innovation centre Digital Catapult.
SetSquared Bristol also marked strides towards gender equality last year, with the share of its high-tech members’ employees who were female rising to more than 25%. It will fund a research project during 2018 to better understand ethnic diversity in tech.
Emma Thorn, interim centre director for SetSquared Bristol, said: “2017 was a tremendous year for our incubator as we notched up many notable successes directly and with our ventures. However, we are not idle and we are already using these successes to build on as we have big goals for the year ahead.
“As SetSquared Bristol membership grows, so will business support levels, and we hope that investors, founders, mentors, and panellist pools will continue to diversify.
“We will also be enabling and encouraging peer-to-peer and alumni engagement as SetSquared Bristol continues to evolve its world-class incubator offer.”
