SETquared members raise £616m
Members of the SETsquared university spinout accelerator network across the SouthWest raised a record £616m (E716m, $870m) in 2020. This as up 40 percent on the previous year despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
The investments for companies in the SETsquared network were largely venture funding for start-ups and scale-ups, ranged from pre-seed/seed rounds of £250-500k through to the latest £118m funding round for Graphcore in Bristol.
SETsquared is a partnership of the UK universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey that supports tech-based businesses from start-up to scale-up. Private investment accounted for 90 percent of the sum raised, with the remaining co-investment from publicly funded R&D grants and innovation loans.
“The record-setting £616m raise reflects the hard work of hundreds of committed founders and innovators across the SETsquared ecosystem who are developing technologies which will transform the future, from the way we live, travel and learn to the way we care for each other and our environment” said Simon Bond, Innovation Director at SETsquared.
“It shows that even during a global pandemic, strong ventures with good university connections, ambitious teams and the right support, will continue to raise investment.”
Bristol member LettUs Grow secured £2.35m in funding for their patent-pending indoor aeroponic growing facilities designed to address global food security and sustainability concerns.
“This investment gave us the platform to really accelerate in 2020 and scale-up the delivery of our game-changing technology to farmers across the country. We’re seeing rising demand from around the world for new technologies to help farmers grow crops in ways that mitigate against the effects of climate change and ever-increasing extreme weather events,” said Charlie Guy, Co-founder and CEO of LettUs Grow in Bristol.
SpaceForge in Wales is developing production methods for materials in space raised £600k funding from the Development Bank of Wales, alongside Bristol Private Equity Club and Innovate UK. The company benefited from an Investment Programme delivered by SETsquared and funded by Innovate UK which aimed to secure private Angel investment alongside public funding.
“It was amazing to receive this funding at such a critical time for our company. It enabled us to create jobs and start development of a new product called Fielder – an innovative method for satellite recovery, which can rendezvous with returning satellites and catch them rather than them burning up in the atmosphere and leaving harmful debris or ending up in the sea. The environmental benefits are huge, as we also have a method of refurbishing and reusing them,” said Joshua Western, CEO and Founder of SpaceForge.
“At its core, SETsquared’s partner universities have developed major research portfolios and this globally competitive concentration of research talent is attractive to founders, innovators and investors,” said Bond. “Looking ahead, I expect to see more venture capital deployed in our ecosystem. However, it is a contested space and our government’s own innovation target to grow the value of domestic R&D to 2.4 percent of GDP is part of a competitive international race. This is set to build-on the great UK success story of the ‘Golden Triangle’ and add several new investment funds from the major university collaborations of the Northern Accelerator in the North East, Northern Gritstone in the North West, MICRA in the Midlands and SETsquared in the South,” he said.
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