INSIGHTS / News

Last week saw the launch of a brand-new Investment Showcase. NextGen Invest gave graduates of our ICURe, Innovation to Commercialisation of University Research Programme, a platform to pitch for investment for their pre spin out commercial ventures.

Fifteen innovative teams from thirteen different UK universities pitched their ventures online across two days to an audience of 120+ investors on each day. From novel medical devices to augmented reality marketing software to smart, sustainable concrete – an impressive array of innovations set to be the growth companies of the future were unveiled.

Chris Haley, 01 Ventures who watched the pitches commented: “Universities in the UK consistently produce world-leading IP and SETsquared always does a great job of nurturing and showcasing some of the best early-stage IP businesses in the country.”

Our ICURe Innovation to Commercialisation of University Research Programme is designed to move ideas and innovation out of universities and into the marketplace. It provides academic teams with a promising commercial idea with funding and support to validate their idea with potential customers. It’s a proven commercial springboard for university innovation having supported 342 teams which have gone on to raise £250m+ investment.

David Canepa, founder of Mesmerix one of the pitching companies said: “The ICURe Programme has been a gamechanger. It gave us a platform to make a huge amount of contacts, potential customers and partners which we just couldn’t have made on our own. It’s culminated in this opportunity to pitch at NextGen Invest, which has been fantastic. Whilst the online format was different, it’s meant a wider reach to investors. We’ll be following-up next week with some investor contacts that we’ve made today.”

Early investment for these ventures will be key to their commercialisation and growth alongside public funding, with all of the pitching teams having also applied for development funding through Innovate UK.

Our next Investment Showcase – NextGen Invest 2021– takes place on 17 March for early-stage deep tech start-ups.