IP Group recorded a $24m loss in a period when the firm also restructured its business following the acquisition of Touchstone Innovations.

UK-based commercialisation firm IP Group slumped to a £21.6m ($24m) loss for the first half of 2018, from a £18.4m ($24m at the time) profit in the same period last year.

The result came as IP Group continued the process of integrating fellow commercialisation firm Touchstone Innovations after acquiring the unit for approximately $641m in November 2017.

IP Group has reorganised structurally into two sector-focused divisions, one covering life sciences and the other technology, with both operating from a single London head office.

The fair net value of IP Group’s life sciences portfolio grew by 2.3% period-on-period to reach $951m, while the technology unit is now worth $454m from $451m at the end of last year.

As a whole, IP Group’s portfolio holdings are worth $1.4bn, almost unchanged from 2017.

Value additions came from IP Group’s publicly-listed portfolio businesses – such as energy cell producer Ceres Power and regenerative medicine technology developer Tissue Regenix – and funding rounds for private companies such as Genomics, a precision medicine spinout from University of Oxford.

IP Group supplied portfolio companies with a total of $61.6m in funding between January and June 2018, up from $26.4m during the same period last year.

The firm now holds stakes in 155 companies plus three “strategic stakes” in multi-sector businesses, 38 de minimis holdings and 40 equity positions that did not require a financial injection.

IP Group continued its international expansion in the US by adding an agreement with Yale University to its repertoire of eight other commercialisation partnerships with US universities and research laboratories.

IP Group also operates an Australia-based subsidiary anticipated to make its first investments before the end of 2018, and a Greater China/Singapore division that has provided strategic opportunities for portfolio companies including Oxford sequencing spinout Oxford Nanopore.

Alan Aubrey, CEO of IP Group, said: “The underlying performance of the group’s portfolio has been robust in the first half with a number of our companies completing both major fundraisings and collaborations.

“Our portfolio is well diversified, both by sector and stage of development, with multiple opportunities to crystallise value and there are a number of inflection points for several of our companies over the next six-to-twelve months.”