Funding for universities partnership
AN enterprise partnership involving some of the South West’s leading universities has secured £2m from the Government’s innovation agency to help accelerate the growth of tech firms in the region.
SETsquared, an enterprise partnership between the universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton, Cardiff and Surrey, has secured the funding from Innovate UK to run the Regional Angel Investment Accelerator (RAIA) initiative.
The scheme aims to help disruptive start-ups, which ordinarily may be seen by investors as riskier prospects, to attract combined private and public capital backing, as well as diversify the pool of angel investors in early-stage businesses.
A pilot of the programme has previously supported nine businesses across the South and South West of England and South Wales to secure £820,000 of Innovate UK grant funding, which leveraged over £2m angel equity investment.
Among them are Bristol-founded businesses Space Forge, which is developing a reusable satellite on which new materials can be manufactured in space, and rechargeable battery firm Anaphite.
Bath-based biotech company Kelpi also recently secured a “landmark investment” to develop compostable packaging it has made from seaweed to reduce the use of singleuse plastics in the food industry.
Bruce Colley, access to finance manager at Innovate UK, explained: “The RAIA scheme enables us to distribute funds directly to where they are needed within UK tech clusters whilst also generating additional private investment from angel investment communities.
“The figures speak for themselves. SETsquared and UKBAA successfully proved through the pilot that not only did they have a pipeline of highly innovative companies that benefited from the scheme, but could also attract new angel investment communities to the opportunity of investing in early-stage, deep-tech start-ups.
“We were, therefore, more than happy to provide additional funding to the scheme so that further earlystage business can benefit from this transformative funding.”
Trade body UK Business Angels Association (UKBAA) will support SETsquared with the rollout of the scheme, which will include a programme of investor capacity building and education.
The organisation’s chief executive Jenny Tooth said the RAIA had already attracted many new angel investors from different backgrounds to the investment community.
Ms Tooth said: “We know that having more active female investors and those from other underrepresented groups will increase investment in a wider, more diverse range of founders. So this is a fantastic outcome and one that will have a long-standing legacy.
“In this second phase of RAIA we will build on this and continue to educate and inform angels of the unique benefits of investing in earlier stage, disruptive deep tech businesses.”