The news roundup for the week ending 1 July 2016.
Editorial: Brexit, pursued by Brussels
As the dust begins to settle following the chaos after the referendum results, spinouts, startups and government-backed businesses are facing an uncertain future.
Big deal: Twitter favours Magic Pony Technology
Imperial College London’s Create Lab celebrates an exit as Twitter acquires machine learning systems developer Magic Pony Technology.
Casting a light on the university venturing world
Gregg Bayes-Brown, former editor of GUV, is working on a survey of university venturing funds commissioned by KAUST and supported by Global University Venturing.
The UCL Technology Fund invests in gene therapy company Freeline, which hopes to treat blood diseases such as haemophilia B.
Auckland spinout StretchSense resinceives series A funding from Start Today, adding to an earlier investment from investors including the New Zealand Venture Investment Fund.
Delft University of Technology-backed venture fund Icos Capital supplies capital to solar technology developer Exasun.
Minnesota University co-leads a series A round in its spinout, which is working on gene editing therapies.
Israel gains Christian university support
A healthcare fund in Israel gets a boost as Liberty University invests $5m from its endowment in a move to stand against calls for education institutions to divest.
Tsinghua to research $7.6bn investment
Tsinghua Holdings, the investment firm backed by Tsinghua University, commits at least $7.6bn to research over the next five years and will set up a commercialisation fund.
Stanford StartX-backed Farm Hill secures $3m in funding round, boosting the food delivery company’s total to $4m.
Cambridge CMOS Sensors detects acquisition
Cambridge University spinout and Cambridge Enterprise Fund portfolio company Cambridge CMOS Sensors has been acquired for an undisclosed amount by Ams.
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign’s EnterpriseWorks incubator graduate Trackbill raises $400,000 in funding.
Imperial Innovations has contributed to a series A round for small-molecule oncology treatment developer Storm Therapeutics, a Cambridge spinout.
Silatronix shows the right material for $8m round
Hitachi Chemical and Inabata have formed strategic partnerships with Silatronix as well as investing as part of a round that took the company’s total funding to almost $14m.
Detroit driven by universities
The three universities that make up the Michigan University Research Corridor added $958m and 11,600 jobs to the city of Detroit in 2015.
EMBL Ventures backs Allecra Therapeutics’ series B round that will support a phase 2 clinical trial for a therapy aimed at drug-resistant bacteria.
Cambridge peeks at material commercialisation
Research into a material that can transform from opaque to transparent draws the interest of companies as Cambridge Enterprise commercialises the work.
Three car manufacturers fund the development of new battery anode technology through a $4m grant to Northwestern University spinout Sinode Systems.
Mironid signals $5.7m series A
Scottish Investment Bank invests in Strathclyde spinout Mironid’s $5.7m series A to support its therapy for degenerative kidney disease, major inflammatory disease and cancer.
