Spinouts such as Oxford’s Moa Technology and Cambridge’s Paragraf were a focal point for Parkwalk Advisors’ largest EIS-assisted venture fund during the 2018-19 tax year.
Parkwalk Advisors, a fund management arm of UK-based commercialisation firm IP Group, equipped spinouts with a total of £50m ($65m) from its Opportunities EIS fund in the 2018-19 tax year, according to GB Investments Magazine.
Opportunities EIS is an evergreen fund and was Parkwalk Advisors’ largest vehicle covered by the UK’s EIS venture tax break policy during 2018-19. The fund raised $82m and took part in more than 20 deals, investing $7.2m on average.
Parkwalk Advisors forecasts having $39m to draw upon for EIS deals this year and expects to maintain a 12-month window for investing contributions to its EIS vehicles.
Spinouts backed by Opportunities EIS recently include University of Oxford crop protection spinout Moa Technology, clinical genomics software developer Congenica and University of Cambridge’s graphene technology business Paragraf.
Moray Wright, chief executive of Parkwalk Advisors, said: “Our investment team has seen record deal flow in the past 9 months and we have closed a number of deals across the university spinout sector – often as part of double-digit funding rounds.”
