Sectors
Aviva has expanded into university spinout investing following an earlier investment in the University of Cambridge's affiliated fund, Cambridge Innovation Capital.
The investment fund aims to close the gap in funding for university ventures after the proof-of-concept stage.
London universities are among the most prolific in the UK for producing spinouts but unlike Oxford and Cambridge, have lacked a single, dedicated organisation to promote spinout investment.
UK universities have also reduced their average equity stakes to new a new low.
Anchor investor Shanghai Industrial Investment targets opportunities in biomedical sectors, including neurodegeneration and gene therapy.
Half of the spinouts from the universities of Bath, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey raised seed funding in 2024.
The London university has seen a surge in applications to commercialise artificial intelligence-related technologies.
With a £15m commitment, Aviva’s investment in Cambridge Innovation Capital’s new Opportunity Fund marks its continuing backing of the Cambridge startup ecosystem
The small German academic institution generates an outsize number of unicorns.
The US university claims to be ranked second in the US for company formation.
The investment fund will mostly back founders from the US university.
Many of the UK's universities have adopted recommendations to lower equity stakes in the companies they commercialise to at or below 25%.
Michelle Perugini, who was a senior research fellow with the Australian university earlier in her career, has been hired as head of commercialisation.
Mart Maasik has stepped down as chief executive of UniTartu Ventures at the University of Tartu to join a $63 spinout investment fund.
Early-stage VC Velocity manage the independently run fund, which backs spinouts from the Canadian university.
Tech transfer arm Edinburgh Innovations has created a new role of director of venture creation to increase the number of companies it spins out.
It becomes the fourth academic institution in the north of England to join the university spinout investor.
Van Wensveen worked in commercialisation at Austrialian government research organisation CSIRO for more more than three years before joining the ventures fund.
He will be joining the Mussallem Foundation to work on treatment for children with congenital heart disease.
The pot of money will fund AI researchers as US universities face cuts to funding for science and research.
Global University Venturing (GUV) is where tech transfer, academic and investment experts meet to explore the latest ideas and technologies driving innovation forward. We drive the discussions and share best practices that are critical to the success of spinouts, scaleouts and innovation programmes. Our aim is to help improve the processes of bringing innovations from academia to global markets and facilitate their integration into the broader business ecosystem.
