Imperial Innovations to rename to Touchstone

Imperial Innovations, the commercialisation arm spun out of Imperial College London (ICL) that still acts as the institution’s tech transfer office, revealed on Friday it hopes to rebrand to Touchstone Innovations.

The firm is set to seek the approval of shareholders on November 21 at its annual general meeting. The new name will not impact its relationship with ICL and in fact the firm plans on retaining its current name for work conducted as Imperial’s tech transfer office.

The new name would however reflect changes undergone over the years that mean Imperial Innovations is also investing in spinouts emerging from University College London as well as Cambridge and Oxford universities.

Imperial Innovations has also backed the UCL Technology Fund, a £50m ($60m) vehicle launched in January 2016, and the Apollo Therapeutics joint venture, a £40m initiative created that same month.

The firm is not the first to rebrand this year. Most notably, Oxford University chose to rebrand its tech transfer office from Isis Innovation to Oxford University Innovation in June 2016.

Russ Cummings, group chief executive of Imperial Innovations, said: “Whilst we are incredibly proud of our heritage and association with Imperial College, it has become increasingly apparent that the name ‘Imperial Innovations’, with its strong link to the group’s origins within Imperial College, does not reflect the diversity of the sources of the intellectual property that the group commercialises and in which we invest.”

The decision to choose Touchstone as its new name stems from the historic meaning of the word, as a touchstone was a tool used by goldsmiths to test the purity of gold or silver.

Cummings concluded: “Touchstone Innovations thus has an interesting resonance with our science focus and many positive connotations relevant to the group’s operations.”