Beyond the Breakthrough · 2024-11-22 · 27 min
A year ago, Irene Tracey, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, and Andrew Williamson, managing partner of venture capital firm Cambridge Innovation Capital, published their UK government-sponsored report into the spinout ecosystem with a list of 11 recommendations on how to uplift the sector. Among these points was a call to adopt the USIT Guide, a template for term sheet negotiations that asks universities to take a stake of between 10% and 25% in life science and physical science spinouts. Today this has been adopted by 49 institutions throughout the country. Williamson says he’s glad the “myopic” focus on equity stakes has been put to rest and the conversation can shift to the great work that is being done at universities. One of the ways that work will be highlighted is with a database of all spinouts from UK universities, due to be released in spring 2025, thanks to the support of Research England, whose chair Jessica Corner leads the fireside chat in this episode of the Beyond the Breakthrough podcast. But what more could, or should, be done?
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Create more spinouts, more quickly with standard deal terms and willingness to fail
More proof of concept funding is needed to create impactful spinouts
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