Imperial Launches Early-Stage Innovation Fund | FinSMEs

Imperial College London has launched its first Innovation fund to invest in early-stage, high-growth, knowledge-intensive companies spun out of the world top ten university.

Parkwalk will be managing the Imperial College Innovation Fund on behalf of Imperial College London.

The fund offers alumni and investors the opportunity to support the commercial development of Imperial’s discoveries into tomorrow’s solutions in medicine, engineering, biochemistry, genetics, materials, quantum computing, data science, and beyond. It will invest in opportunities related to the College – whether founded by a member of staff or a student, or with a research or development link – to build a portfolio of (S)EIS-qualifying investee companies. The fund will invest at early-stage and provide follow-on funding, and will invest alongside other venture capital funds, investment management companies, and investor groups. It may also seek matched grant funding from suitable institutions.

Imperial has a long history of producing ground-breaking scientific research and technologies, as well as a flourishing entrepreneurial ecosystem. Its recent performance has seen the number of startups more than double in the last five years, attracting approximately £800m of new investment. Notable spinout successes include GraphicsFuzz, which sold to Google in 2018, and Magic Pony, an AI startup that was acquired by Twitter in 2016.

So far, Imperial has introduced facilities and programs including the Enterprise Lab, the White City Incubator, the Translation & Innovation Hub, the Imperial Venture Mentoring Service, and the Imperial College Advanced Hackspace to help support new ideas.