Aviva, the FTSE-100 insurance coverage group and asset supervisor, is becoming a member of the listing of backers ploughing hundreds of thousands of kilos into a few of Britain’s most promising college spinout firms.
Sources stated £35m of the capital was being supplied by Northern LGPS, the collective asset pool of the Higher Manchester, Merseyside and West Yorkshire pension funds, with an extra £15m from Aviva and Fulcrum Asset Administration.
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Since its launch in 2022, Northern Gritstone has invested in dozens of early-stage firms spun out of universities in Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester.
As a part of the £50m fundraising, Paddy Dowdall, assistant director of the Higher Manchester Pension Fund, is becoming a member of the Northern Gritstone board as a non-executive director.
The car is targeted on firms working in fields comparable to deeptech and life sciences, together with semiconductor design and manufacturing; novel supplies; safe computing; AI; healthtech; and gene therapies.
“We are very grateful for this further support from investors in our journey to develop world winning businesses in the North of England originating from our university ecosystem and contributing to the future of higher value added activity and the North’s productivity,” Lord O’Neill stated within the assertion.
Duncan Johnson, Northern Gritstone’s chief government stated the fundraising supplied proof of “our ability to create the world-leading businesses of tomorrow based on world-class innovation that exists in the north of England”.
Its newest elevate comes as quite a few college spinout ventures in different areas of the UK are struggling to lift adequate funding to get off the bottom.
Ben Luckett, managing director, enterprise and strategic capital at Aviva Traders stated: “University spinouts will help power innovation, drive tangible real-world impact, and support the UK to get ready for the future.”
