Cambridge Innovation Capital has released its annual results, celebrating a 46% increase in net asset value and its first IPO exit.
Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC), the patient capital fund aligned with University of Cambridge, released its annual statement on Monday for the year ended March 31, 2020, celebrating a range of key successes.
The fund’s portfolio now consists of 30 companies and net assets have grown by 46% to more than £301m ($377m), equating to a fair value increase of $87m and, together with investments, a portfolio value of $365m – up from $243m for the previous period.
CIC invested $44.6m* in portfolio companies, down from $58.5m* during the 2018-19 financial year. The money went into four new and 12 existing portfolio businesses, pushing the total invested by CIC to $204m*.
CIC further noted it had now drawn down $53.2m* from the $196m additional commitment secured in March 2019.
The four new additions to CIC’s portfolio include Riverlane, a quantum computing software developer spun out of Cambridge, Sense Biodetection, a molecular diagnostic tests developer, and PredictImmune, an autoimmune disease prognostics spinout of Cambridge.
Immutrin, a Cambridge spinout that is working on therapies for “conditions caused by abnormal protein conformations in the tissues”, according to CIC’s annual report, has also joined the fund’s portfolio.
The company appears to be in stealth and the size of CIC’s investment has not been disclosed, though a regulatory filing confirmed Immutrin raised seed funding in December 2019.
Among CIC’s successes for the year were the $60.7m initial public offering of Bicycle Therapeutics, a UK-based developer of treatments for diseases with a high unmet need spun out of research institute MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, in May 2019.
The IPO, on the Nasdaq Global Market, marked the first such exit for CIC.
Other highlights included the $240m series C round for CMR Surgical, a UK-based surgical robotics developer, in September 2019 and the launch of life sciences accelerator Start Codon in April 2019.
CIC also grew its team by adding Vin Lingathoti as a partner in November 2019, as well as welcoming Nick Richards as general counsel and Michelle Lamprecht as head of marketing.
* The conversions were made from British pounds sterling at contemporary exchange rates based on the totals offered by CIC in its annual accounts.
