Lord O'Neill to urge more state support for 'credible' university spinouts

A former Treasury minister will on Wednesday urge more government support for "credible" university spinout ventures as a glut of new vehicles try to raise hundreds of millions of pounds to back academics.

Sky News understands that Lord O'Neill, the former Goldman Sachs chief economist who served in David Cameron's administration, will use an event on London's Mansion House on Thursday to argue for the legitimacy of university spinouts as an emerging asset class.

The summit will be jointly hosted by Northern Gritstone, which Lord O'Neill chairs, Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC) and Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE), and is expected to be attended by hundreds of investors from pension funds, corporate venture funds and global asset managers.

Lord O'Neill is expected to call for government support to develop a stronger ecosystem for the university spinout sector, although he will argue that any such support should be dependent upon the development of credible structures for investors.

Since its launch in 2022, Northern Gritstone has invested in dozens of ventures created by academics from institutions in cities such as Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield.

Midlands Mindforge, which is focused on the cluster of universities in Birmingham and the surrounding areas, is in the process of raising its inaugural fund.

In August, Sky News revealed that UCL, King's College London and the Francis Crick Institute were among a separate group targeting a £500m fund to back academics in the capital.

Imperial College London is raising a separate pool of capital for similar purposes.

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QantX, a vehicle focused on university spinouts in the south-west of England, has successfully raised funding and begun deploying capital.

The Russell Group universities, which comprises more than 24 UK institutions, have called for the government to launch a vehicle - dubbed Spark Fund - to invest in spinouts across the UK.

Sir Nicholas Lyons, the chairman of Phoenix Group and a former Lord Mayor of London, and executives from the British Business Bank, are also expected to attend Wednesday's event at Mansion House.

"Just one trillion-pound company would transform the UK's economy and productivity," said one person involved in the summit.

"That company is likely to first emerge from one of the top university's life sciences and deep tech ecosystems."

The government has been urged by some investors to use part of the new £7bn National Wealth Fund to boost spinouts, with tens of billions of pounds also purportedly unlocked for investment through the Mansion House Compact struck under the last Conservative government.