The rest of the 100 (in alphabetical order): Mark Payton, chief executive, Mercia Technologies
As the man responsible for the management buyout of Mercia Fund Management in 2010 and the subsequent £100m ($155m) flotation of Mercia Technologies in 2014, chief executive Mark Payton has left his imprint on the UK’s technology transfer ecosystem.
Before joining Mercia, Payton was a project manager at Oxford University Innovation, the tech transfer arm of University of Oxford, and vice-president of corporate development at Oxxon Therapeutics, an immunotherapy developer acquired by biopharmaceutical firm Oxford BioMedica in 2007.
Mercia has established partnerships with 18 UK universities, including recent additions Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh Napier University, University of St Andrews and Sheffield Hallam University.
Among Mercia’s recent deals is the sale in March this year of Science Warehouse, an enterprise and IT services spinout from University of Leeds, to enterprise software firm Advanced Business Software and Solutions for $23m. At the time, Science Warehouse was Mercia’s second-largest direct investment.
