The universities of Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland, and Teesside have officially taken the wraps off their North East Spinout Inspire Fund, confirming it has raised £22.5 million.
The fund isn’t entirely new; it has been investing since March, and The Next Leap counted it as one of the 124 university venture funds it identified across Europe in its analysis last month.
A total of £12.5 million has been committed by the five universities, with the remainder coming from the North East Mayoral Strategic Authority.
The involvement of the local mayoralty – via its North East Fund – is notable also because this kind of public support enabled Midlands Mindforge to secure its initial £30 million yesterday. In Mindforge’s case, it was the East Midlands Combined County Authority and the West Midlands Combined Authority.
Managed by Northstar Ventures, the Spinout Inspire Fund plans to back at least 30 spinouts within five years, making initial investments of £200,000 to £750,000. It’ll target sectors including life sciences, AI, software, cleantech, advanced manufacturing and engineering.
The fund’s official launch is timely: earlier this week, Universities UK announced its ambition to help Britain’s spinouts secure £100 billion in funding by 2035.
The Spinout Inspire Fund’s first three investments are Durham spinout H2CHP, which received £300,000 as part of a £1.5 million round in March; Newcastle spinout NunaBio, which secured £500,000 as part of a £6.5 million round in April; and Gnosis Health, a joint spinout of Newcastle and Plymouth, which obtained £250,000 as part of a £1.1 million round last week.
