University venture funds are becoming an increasingly important tool for universities to support their ecosystems — here are the new ones launched in 2024.
A new wave of funds that invest in university spinouts launched in 2024, showing the increased investor interest in financing academic research.
University venture funds play a critical part in providing the early-stage financing that spinouts need to commercialise. Universities that have affiliated venture funds tend to have higher rates of spinouts.
The distribution of university venture funds around the world is uneven. A series of analyses by Global University Venturing this year showed that in the US, only a third of the top research universities have a fund and in Europe it is about 40% of institutions.
Australia has one of the most mature university venture fund ecosystems, with half of universities having access to an investment vehicle — including many that form part of one of the world’s oldest, Uniseed. In Asia, there remains a dearth of university venture funds, although in Japan almost all the top universities have their own venture capital arm.
Here are a selection of funds that launched in 2024. Some invest exclusively in a single university while others are run by independent VC firms that invest in several academic institutions, showing the variety of emerging fund structures.
Biofund IV
Kurma Partners, a France-based venture capital firm that works with universities and research institutes to co-create and invest in health and biotech spinouts, raised €140m ($154m) for the first close of its Biofund IV in October. Kurma is planning to raise a total of €250m.
Kurma’s partners include regional commercialisation office SATT Paris-Saclay, biomedical research foundation Pasteur Institute and IRB Barcelona, a Spanish institute for research in biomedicine. Biofund IV will back up to 20 companies, having already made three investments.
Dickson & Main Fund I
The University of Arkansas partnered with venture capital firm FortySix Venture Capital to establish the Dickson & Main Fund I which will invest in early-stage startups emerging from the US academic institution and across the state.
The university’s Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation-run venture intern programme supports fund management and will allow students to participate in the due diligence process. FortySix Venture Capital will donate a portion of the carried interest returns to the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation with a view to building an evergreen pool of capital.
Innovations in Mental Health Fund
KHP Ventures, created by the UK’s King’s College London, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, launched a £20m ($25m) fund in mid-December for early-stage startups targeting unmet needs in depression, anxiety and psychosis, with a priority on digital-first solutions and the potential to scale globally.
UK charitable foundation Wellcome Trust is the anchor investor with an £8m commitment. The fund expects to make investments between £250,000 and £1m.
KHP Ventures will also be running an immersion programme to help startups test their digital solutions.
IP Group Hostplus Fund
IP Group Australia received an additional A$125m ($79m) from local superannuation fund Hostplus in November, bringing the pension provider’s total commitment to A$435m. IP Group Australia is part of UK-listed commercialisation firm IP Group. It invests in spinouts from eight partner universities in Australia, as well as the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
IP Group Australia’s 17 portfolio companies have raised close to A$400m and are approaching A$1bn in combined value, chief executive Mike Molinari said in November.
Imec.xpand Fund II
Imec.xpand, the investment fund aligned with research institute Imec in Belgium, closed its second fund at €300m ($320m) in May, far exceeding its original target of €250m. Limited partners in the fund include Fidimec, an investment fund of the Flemish government, and, reportedly, “most” limited partners from Imec.xpand’s first fund, a $135m vehicle closed in 2018.
Imec.xpand invests in deep tech and health tech startups working on nanoelectronics innovations. It gives its portfolio companies access to the resources of nanoelectronics research institute Imec, including a cleanroom and the possibility for low-volume manufacturing.
Laude Ventures
Laude Ventures was launched in early December by a group of alumni from the University of California, Berkeley. The $150m fund will partner with researchers at the institution at the moment of discovery and help them build companies.
Laude Ventures plans to make investments in 25 companies. Its limited partners include more than 50 academic researchers and founders.
Live Ventures
Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore established Live Ventures with an initial S$10m ($7.5m) towards its $15m target to invest in research projects and resulting spinouts. Live Ventures, which includes an incubator, will inject up to $371,000 per project over the next five years, pairing experienced entrepreneurs with these projects to form companies.
Michigan University Innovation Capital Fund
Led by the University of Michigan, the Michigan University Innovation Capital Fund will invest in early-stage life sciences startups from the US state’s 15 public institutions, which include Western Michigan University, Michigan State University, Wayne State University, Grand Valley State University and Michigan Technological University.
The fund will seek to write the first cheque for portfolio companies and will make pre-seed commitments between $50,000 and $250,000.
Nanyang Frontier Fund
Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) and VC firm Walden International joined forces in November to launch the Nanyang Frontier Fund with an initial target of S$50m ($38m). The university has invested S$5m. Walden chairman Lip-Bu Tan and unnamed associates of Tan have also provided S$5m.
Tan, an NTU alumnus, said: “I strongly believe Nanyang Frontier Fund can identify startups of disruptive technology from NTU and Singapore, and it can nurture and scale them to become Singapore-based global companies.”
Pack Ventures
The University of Washington-focused venture capital firm Pack Ventures is raising $30m for its second fund and has signed up more than 50 investors. Pack Ventures focuses on artificial intelligence, biotech, robotics and autonomous systems, photonics and next-generation computing technologies.
Pack Ventures is legally separate from the university but is the sole pre-seed and seed fund partnered with the university’s incubator CoMotion Labs. State law prevents the University of Washington from investing directly in its startups.
PSV Hafnium
PSV, the venture capital arm of the Technical University of Denmark, set up a fund in October called PSV Hafnium with an initial DKK385m ($56.5m) and a DKK600m target size. The deep tech, early-stage fund has secured commitments from the European Investment Fund and the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark.
PSV Hafnium will invest in startups in the Nordics region, focusing on energy, computing, health tech, materials and space. Its aim is for at least 65% of its portfolio to be involved in environmental sustainability and tackling the climate crisis.
Red Bear Ventures
While not officially endorsed or affiliated with the US’s Cornell University, Red Bear Ventures is raising its inaugural fund with a focus on startups and spinouts from the academic institution. The firm has had a positive response from the university community and hopes to build long-lasting ties with researchers, managing partner Gus Warren told Global University Venturing.
Red Bear Ventures plans to make initial investments between $500,000 and $2m. It emerged out of Red Bear Angels, an angel investor community focused on the Cornell ecosystem. Cornell University does not have an in-house venture capital fund.
Redbird Innovation Fund
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has put HK$200m ($25m) towards the Redbird Innovation Fund and is seeking investment managers to co-establish venture investment funds.
The initiative is expected to grow to a total of HK$2bn ($257m) across multiple funds and was created to support spinouts, as well as staff, student and alumni startups.
RPI Ventures
US private research university Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is raising a $10m fund for RPI Ventures, the institution’s innovation arm. The money is expected to be raised from alumni, though no timeline has been revealed.
Among RPI Ventures’ existing offerings is an on-campus incubator called the Severino Centre for Technological Entrepreneurship, an off-campus accelerator called The Bridge and the tech transfer office, Intellectual Property and Technology Licensing.
SETsquared / QantX
SETsquared, a group of six academic institutions in the UK’s southwest, partnered with venture capital firm QantX in October to create an as-yet-unnamed investment company that will aim to raise £300m ($392m) to invest in spinouts from partner universities of Bath, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey.
The investment company has a large pipeline it could tap into, as SETsquared’s six members are responsible for more than 230 spinouts. Startups located in the south and western regions of the UK that are not affiliated with any of the six universities will also be eligible for investment.
Tech Europe Foundation
Polytechnic University of Milan, Bocconi University, software producer ION and private equity firm FSI, all based in Italy, are behind Tech Europe Foundation, an initiative to transform the city of Milan into one of Europe’s leading tech hubs. The foundation will have access to an initial €100m ($110m) fund, with the Chamber of Commerce of Milano Monza Brianza Lodi contributing the first half. The founding partners aim for the fund to reach €1bn by 2030.
The foundation will fund research, scout and support startups, and offer open innovation services to corporates, focusing on artificial intelligence, biotech, microelectronics, aerospace and renewable energy.
UK northeast fund
Five universities in the UK’s northeast invested £12.5m ($16m) in a £22.5m as-yet-unnamed fund that will invest in spinouts from Durham University, Newcastle University, Northumbria University, the University of Sunderland and Teesside University.
The money is expected to be deployed over the next five years and will seek to make at least 30 investments. The universities are seeking for a fund manager, who will be tasked with improving an ecosystem that faces a gap of up to £19m annually in required investments.
University of Utah Ventures
The University of Utah, which formed four new spinouts in the last academic year, joined forces with local venture capital firm Epic Ventures to create University of Utah Ventures in September. The fund will back early-stage startups in software, life sciences and fintech.
A target size for the fund has not been revealed. A regulatory filing registering the fund in August showed no capital had been raised by that point.
UTokyo IPC Academic Startup Acceleration Fund
The University of Tokyo Innovation Platform (UTokyo IPC) already has two funds: the original, ¥25bn ($162m) IPC Fund 1 and the ¥25.6bn ($82.5m) AOI Fund. In April, it announced plans to raise a third, the Academic Startup Acceleration (ASA) Fund.
The fund’s target size have not been revealed, but real estate developer Tokyu Land and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government are limited partners, as is the University of Tokyo.
This year, the university also partnered with venture capital firm Vertex Ventures Japan to raise a $64m fund.
VIVES Inter-University Fund
VIVES, the investment arm established by Belgian university UCLouvain, added €5m ($5.4m) to its current vehicle, the VIVES Inter-University Fund, growing it to €75m ($79m) with a commitment from the Luxembourgish government-backed Luxembourg Future Fund 2.
VIVES Inter-University Fund was created in July 2020 by UCLouvain, with partners KU Leuven (in Belgium), the Université Paris Cité in France, Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands, and the University of Luxembourg. The fund invests from pre-seed to series B round in spinouts and startups in the healthcare, agtech and engineering sectors.
Limited partners include Sopartec, the tech transfer office of UCLouvain, and IMBC Spinnova, the venture fund of the University of Mons in Belgium, as well as the European Investment Fund.
HR, payroll and employee medical services provider Securex and insurance firms Lalux and Axa have also backed the fund, as have Belfin, BNPP Fortis Private Equity, ING Belgique, Investsud, Namur Invest, Nivelinvest, finance&invest.brussels, Sambrinvest, SFPI-FPIM, two unnamed family offices and VIVES’s management team.
