Venture building and investment company Northern Gritstone has launch a new Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) fund in collaboration with Parkwalk Advisors.
The Northern Universities Venture Fund will offer investors access to early-stage IP-rich science and deeptech investment opportunities from the Universities of Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield.
It will be managed by Parkwalk Advisors, the UK’s most active university spinout investor, with over £500m of assets under management and target investments across sectors such as quantum computing, AI, engineering biology, semiconductors, healthtech and clean technology.
Manchester-based Northern Gritstone, who won BusinessCloud’s Northern Leaders Investor Award in January, recently announced further fundraising of £50m, bringing its total capital commitment to £362m.
The collaboration aims to offer a new investment channel specifically for high net worth individuals.
“I am convinced that the UK’s first trillion-dollar business will emerge from investing into UK university science and technology,” said Duncan Johnson, CEO of Northern Gritstone.
“The launch of Parkwalk’s Northern Universities Venture Fund is a way to bring untapped innovation from the North of England to a broader investor base.”
Moray Wright, CEO of Parkwalk Advisors, added: “This collaboration brings together two of the UK’s leading forces in university commercialisation.
“Parkwalk’s expertise in venture capital and deep tech, combined with Northern Gritstone’s unrivalled university partnerships, means we can offer investors access to an exceptional and underexploited pipeline of innovation.”