Ahren Innovation Capital, co-founded by eight Cambridge, UK, researchers, has reached its final close, having attracted limited partners including Unilever, Sky and Aviva.
Ahren Innovation Capital, a UK-based investment firm co-founded by eight scientists from the Cambridge, UK ecosystem, yesterday closed its inaugural vehicle at more than £200m ($250m) with limited partners (LPs) including consumer goods conglomerate Unilever.
Mass media corporation Sky also backed the fund, as did individual investors André Desmarais, deputy chairman, president and co-chief executive of financial services group Power Corporation, and Peruvian billionaire businessman Carlos Rodriquez-Pastor.
Insurance provider Aviva had backed the initial $129m close in September 2018, together with the eight Cambridge researchers, diversified holding group Wittington Investments and unnamed US families.
Founded in 2017, Ahren Innovation Capital focuses on the areas of the human brain and artificial intelligence, genetics and biotechnology, space and robotics, and energy and environmental technologies.
The firm both invests in and helps build companies, offering access to the expertise of its founding science partners. It is particularly seeking out opportunities that take a multidisciplinary approach to tackle challenges.
Ahren’s portfolio companies include Cambridge Epigenetix, a UK-based epigenetic technology spinout of University of Cambridge, that raised a $30m series C round led by the firm in May 2018.
The firm has already achieved its first exit with Bicycle Therapeutics, a UK-based developer of treatments for diseases with a high unmet need spun out of MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, which completed a $60.7m initial public offering in May 2019.
Ahren is led by founding and managing partner Alice Newcombe-Ellis, a Cambridge graduate with a degree in mathematics.
Newcombe-Ellis said: “We feel privileged to have an LP base of exceptional individuals and institutions sharing Ahren’s vision and values. We consider this our valued ‘family’ of thought-leaders.
“We now focus our attention on actively supporting entrepreneurs to achieve their ambitions. We are very selective in identifying outstanding opportunities, but once we invest, we are deeply committed to helping ensure their success.”
Ahren’s founding science partners include Shankar Balasubramanian, a professor in the department of chemistry and co-founder of Cambridge Epigenetix, and Andy Parker, head of physics at the university.
Venki Ramakrishnan, president of scientific body Royal Society and Nobel laureate, is also a founding science partner, as are John Daugman, professor of computer vision and pattern recognition who invented iris recognition, and Zoubin Ghahramani, professor of information engineering.
Steven Jackson, the Frederick James Quick professor of biology, and Greg Winter, a genetic engineer and master of Trinity College, complete the founding science partner group together with Martin Rees, emeritus professor of cosmology and astrophysics.
