In the UK and Europe, this is accurate, saying that the United States lacks enormous growth funds for the late new companies owned by the United States. According to the European Investment Fund, there are at least seven times larger VC funds in the United States than in Europe. Therefore, the emergence of the new growth fund in the UK is important.
The Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC), which monopolizes the Cambridge ecosystem within the famous university, has begun a ‘opportunity fund’ of £ 100 million ($ 120 million), which is essentially growth fund. The CIC has invested $ 770 million in more than 40 companies and has a privilege with Cambridge University.
The fund is anchored by Aviva Investors and British Patient Capital and will invest in the growth stage deep sea technology and life science companies.
Two investments have already been made. Practical semiconductors are large -scale chip designers and manufacturers who have raised $ 339.3 million so far, while Riverlane is a quantum computing error modification company that raised $ 127 million.
The new CIC fund will invest up to £ 20 million ($ 25.2 million) per investment invested in deep sea technology and life science companies’ late funding. Of course, hope is to solve the late start -ups of the UK’s long -term procurement gap.
It is this problem that the British government has announced the “AI behavior plan” last month. Existing technical ecosystems around the famous Oxford and Cambridge University. In addition, the “Golden Triangle” of London, Oxford and Cambridge, which consists of five major universities in the UK, will provide a greater link, including transportation, along with 14 billion pounds of funding package.
Andrew Williamson, CIC’s management partner, told Techcrunch that CIC has traditionally invested in an early stage of Cambridge around Cambridge.
“Historically, what we did is when the company reaches Series C stage… . We did not have capital in the core funds.
“So we provided them as a joint investment to some of the LPS. However, many organizations, especially financial institutions, are not actually established to invest directly in the company. So the Genesis of this fund is what they can participate. ”
He added that one of the main guidelines from the British government to the British business bank is to solve the gap in the later stage of the scale -up capital. “This is the perfect mission for what they want. Such growth fund. For Aviva, they are one of the signators of the Mansion House Compact. So this is to assign a part of pension funds to production growth assets. ”
CIC portfolio’s outlet gene therapy company Gyro Scope Sales for $ 1.5 billion in Novartis, PET therapeutic developer PETMEDIX, $ 225 million, liquid biopsy platform of $ 390 million and sound recognition sales. Will be. Developer audio analysis.
Cambridge is best known to produce several companies, including ARM Holdings, Abcam, Darktrace and Bicycle Therapy.
