European universities ahead of the US in having an investment fund

Aug 20, 2024 -- Thierry Heles -- Global University Venturing --

More than 40% of Europe’s top universities have a venture fund to invest in their spinouts — including the University of Oxford which boasts the world’s largest university venture fund with more than £850m ($1.1bn) out of which it has invested £775m to date.

In total, 62 out of 150 institutions — ranked by the QS World University Rankings 2025 — have access to a dedicated venture fund, including 16 of the top 20 institutions.

It puts Europe slightly ahead of the US, where 50 of the most research-intensive universities have a fund — just 34%. Most European university funds are associated with the highest-ranked institutions, with only 18 universities in the lower half having a venture fund.

European institutions spun out 677 companies in 2021 (the most recently available figure for the continent), while US universities created 996 spinouts that year. More capital overall is generally available for spinouts in the US — in 2021, US-based companies raised more than $25.5bn, more than half of the nearly $41bn raised that year, and while that was a bumper year, a similar story emerged for other years.

This goes some way to explaining why Europe is lagging despite the fact it has a healthy ecosystem of university venture funds. At the same time, it also explains why European institutions are keen on setting up their own funds.

Multi-university venture funds: common in Europe, rare in the US

There are an equal 54 unique university venture funds in both Europe and the US. One key difference between the US and Europe is that there are 11 multi-university venture funds — funds co-founded by two or more institutions —  among these 150 universities. The US has them — for example, the Engine Ventures is backed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University and invests in spinouts from both and other institutions, while the Michigan University Innovation Capital Fund covers the 15 institutions in the state of Michigan. Butfunds in the US typically cover just one institution (or multiple campuses within a system, such as the Maryland Momentum Fund).

In Europe, these multi-university venture funds typically involve universities in the same region (such as the north of England-focused Northern Gritstone) or the same country (such as the Atlantic Bridge-managed University Bridge Fund) but some will cover a wider geographic area. VIVES began as a venture fund for UCLouvain in Belgium, but with its third fund of €75m expanded to three other countries, also covering KU Leuven (Belgium), Paris Cité University (France), Wageningen University and Research (Netherlands), and the University of Luxembourg.

Another multi-university venture fund, Qbic, has so far remained focused on the Belgian ecosystem. Having been around since 2012 and currently investing from its third fund — which achieved a final close of €88.5m in July 2023 — Qbic backs spinouts from five universities (Ghent University, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, University of Liège, Hasselt University and University of Antwerp), as well as research institutions Imec and VITO, and eight hospitals.

Cédric Van Nevel, a partner with Qbic, previously joined the Beyond the Breakthrough podcast to explain why his firm is keen to maintain its local strategy: “Our focus is primarily in Belgium because we invest that early, we see that having a proximity, being close to the teams, being easily available also for face-to-face meetings makes our and their lives a lot easier sometimes.”

He added: “Venturing into other countries might make sense in the future, but if so, then probably it would be for the nearer opportunities, say in the south of the Netherlands, north of France, rather than venturing across the Atlantic, for example.”

Theodorus, originally a university venture fund for Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), has gone further and expanded to North America. When its €42m fourth fund launched in 2018, Theodorus expanded its remit to spinouts from any institutions, focusing on early-stage life sciences and deep tech spinouts broadly. It also attracted investment from Quebec, Canada, and opened an office in Montreal after raising €5m from local pension fund Fonds de solidarité FTQ in 2020.

It’s not just Belgium. Multi-university venture funds exist throughout Europe – the Czech Republic, for example, has the i&i Biotech Fund (its partners include the Czech Academy of Sciences and various subsidiaries and Charles University Innovations Prague, the tech transfer office of Charles University). Its focus on biotech is no random choice: the fund explicitly wants to build on the legacy of Antonín Holý, whose research led to the development of the HIV medication tenofovir. The drug netted the Czech Academy of Sciences a large amount of capital it’s now reinvesting through the i&i Biotech Fund.

Sweden has the Trio Impact Invest fund, supporting spinouts from Karolinska Institute, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University. The Carma Fund, co-launched by Goethe University Frankfurt and its tech transfer office Innovectis, covers German and Austrian life science spinouts thanks to the involvement of commercialisation firm Ascenion, whose partners include more than 30 universities, life science research institutions and hospitals in the two countries. The Netherlands has UNIIQ, a €28.8m early-stage investment fund backed by TU Delft, Erasmus University Medical Center, Leiden University and Erasmus University.

It’s not just about cash

The UK has multiple multi-university venture funds too, including Midlands Mindforge (which is still in the process of raising its first close), the Northern Accelerator Seed Fund (which invests relatively small sums, having backed nine spinouts with a total of £1.8m), and Northern Gritstone, founded by the universities of Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield, and with £312m at its disposal.

Some of these funds try to do more than just offer funding. The Northern Accelerator Seed Fund, for example, is part of the broader Northern Accelerator initiative — involving Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland, Teesside and York universities — that aims to stimulate the creation of more spinouts through programmes such as training academics in impact and entrepreneurship and finding executives for spinout teams.

Northern Gritstone, too, is becoming more than just an investor. The north of England-focused investment company, founded by the universities of Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield, saw the first cohort from its accelerator programme, NG Studios, graduate in June. Miles Kirby, the chief executive of accelerator Deeptech Labs who helped create NG Studios, sees it as a way for the region to take its destiny into its own hands. Referring to the lack of scale and ambition in the north of England as a “self-fulfilling prophecy”, he says founders who dream small and ask for little money will never get the kind of cash that would allow them to build large businesses.

It’s one area where Europeans have taken a lesson from the US, with Northern Gritstone chief executive Duncan Johnson saying he came up with the idea for NG Studios after a visit to The Engine. The problem in the UK, he argues, is that spinouts and technology transfer can be too obscure a process. He says: “I still feel, at many levels — even in Cambridge, even in London — that sometimes, it’s a bit of a closed door rather than what you see at MIT: an open door, very transparent at what’s going on. For us to really energise and drive this tech ecosystem, this science innovation industrial policy we have as a country, we’ve got to keep opening doors, and keeping doors open, and making it very transparent.”

GCV has an LP position in Deeptech Capital.