Northern Accelerator, an investment program which supports spinouts from Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria and Sunderland universities, plans to raise $125m for a venture fund.
Northern Accelerator, a UK-based commercialisation grouping of four universities in northeast England, is seeking to raise £100m ($125m) for a venture fund to back spinouts and startups, BusinessLive reported yesterday.
Northern Accelerator will select a management partner for the new fund, dubbed North East University Investment Fund, in November 2019 following a formal tender process and Q&A presentations in London and Newcastle.
The vehicle will adopt an evergreen structure in the hope of giving Northern Accelerator-allied spinouts a funding boost and creating a legacy for spinouts in northeast England, one that potentially continues once the accelerator’s UK government funding lapses in 2021.
Armed with $6.9m from the government’s $125m Connecting Capability Fund, Northern Accelerator launched as an alliance between Durham and Newcastle universities in 2016, before expanding the following year to include peers Northumbria and Sunderland.
The program has so far injected about $842,000 into 20 businesses, with a forthcoming investment tranche expected to bring the total above $1.3m by the end of July 2019.
Northern Accelerator’s member universities seem to have benefited – forecasts suggest they will generate a total of 10 spinouts this year, compared with an average of less than two prior to Northern Accelerator’s introduction.
Jordan Christie, the marketing officer for Northern Accelerator at University of Durham’s Research and Innovation Services unit, which oversees the initiative, said: “The creation of the venture capital fund is the Northern Accelerator’s legacy, as the program might only be here for a set period of time. The venture capital fund will be there in the future for spinouts to get funding from.”
