Early Stage Science Companies Secure Investment
The UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S) – formerly known as Rainbow Seed...
read moreUK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S) — formerly known as Rainbow Seed Fund — an early-stage venture capital fund focused on promising technologies based on the UK’s publicly-funded research, today announces investment in seven companies via the Government’s Innovate UK (IUK) investment accelerator pilot, which combines equity and grant funding to back high-potential therapeutic, diagnostic and device companies.
IUK’s £8.5 million investment accelerator pilot aims to bring private investors into Innovate UK grant-funded companies earlier, supporting these early-stage companies as they develop innovative solutions.
The seven newly-funded UKI2S life sciences portfolio companies operate in the synthetic biology and medical device sectors and focus on solving world-impacting problems such as addressing antibiotic resistance, increasing efficiency of chronic wounds treatment, increasing safety of health staff in clinical settings, and improving peripheral nerve injury treatment.
“Securing enough capital to make sufficient progress to attract the next round of financing is notoriously hard for early-stage companies, as is investor willingness to continue to back the most promising companies in further funding rounds,” said Dr Andrew Muir, UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S) Investment Director. “UKI2S aims to lower this establishment phase hurdle and drive companies towards commercialisation and sustainability, offering strategic support and leveraging private capital to help businesses stand on their own. With a risk appetite that is higher than pure private funds, we get involved at the earliest stages and continue to grow with these companies as ‘patient capital’ investors. We are delighted to be working with Innovate UK to speed companies’ progress with greater capital.”
The new joint IUK and UKI2S investments include:
Nick Bassett, Head of Investor Partnerships at Innovate UK, commented: “The fundamental concept of the IUK investment accelerator model is to make the best grant funding and investment decision in partnership. Simultaneously using Innovate UK expertise to identify innovative opportunities and grant funding to change the risk profile of the proposition; in tandem with our partner’s expertise to identify the best commercial opportunities for investment meant companies had to prove themselves in two very different competitive processes to succeed. The UKI2S focus on investing early-stage venture capital in technology companies, makes them an ideal partner on the investment accelerator.”
The UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S) – formerly known as Rainbow Seed...
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