Cambridge Innovation Capital, a venture capital firm that supports the Cambridge ecosystem, has launched a £100 million opportunity fund to invest in deeptech and life sciences startups across the UK. The fresh fund saw support from Aviva Investors and British Patient Capital.
- Founded in 2013, Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC) manages over £500 million and has invested in more than 30 companies across various sectors, such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things, quantum technologies, autonomous systems, therapeutics, MedTech, digital health, and genomics.
- To date, CIC has seen several exits, including the $1.5 billion sale of gene therapy company Gyroscope Therapeutics to Novartis, the $285 million acquisition of PetMedix by Zoetis, the $390 million sale of Inivata to NeoGenomics, and the sale of Audio Analytic. Additionally, CIC’s portfolio company Bicycle Therapeutics went public on NASDAQ in 2019.
- The £100 million Opportunity Fund aims to support later-stage rounds of deep tech and life sciences companies, with investments of up to £20 million per company.
- The fund addresses the UK’s scale-up financing gap, helping Britain’s promising businesses avoid seeking overseas funding while supporting the Government’s goal of creating Europe’s Silicon Valley with Cambridge at its centre.
- With the fresh fund, CIC has already made two investments:
- Pragmatic Semiconductor: A Cambridge-based company developing ultra-low-cost, flexible integrated circuits for embedding intelligence in various applications.
- Riverlane: A company developing a Quantum Error Correction Stack to make quantum computing scalable and practical.
"With this new fund we will support our portfolio companies, and scaleups from the UK ecosystem, as they reach a defining moment in their growth – and at exactly the point where the UK often loses its most exciting businesses. We want to be a part of that change, and we’re delighted to be working with Aviva Investors and British Patient Capital to achieve this ambition," Managing Partner at CIC, Andrew Williamson, commented.
- The CIC Opportunity Fund saw support from Aviva Investors, a global asset manager providing tailored investment solutions, and British Patient Capital, a subsidiary of the British Business Bank, which fosters long-term investment in innovative UK companies.
“We’re pleased to be expanding our relationship with CIC. Cambridge has long been a global research centre, but it is now a growing hub for breakthrough technology as its spin-out ecosystem matures," claims Christine Hockley, Managing Director and Funds at British Patient Capital.
