Science Creates Venture Capital kicks off the second series of Enterprise Roadshows

Researchers hear presentation from Science Creates Venture Capital at the Enterprise Roadshow

2 October 2024

On the 18th of September 2024, the Research Commercialisation team held their most recent edition of the Enterprise Roadshow featuring Science Creates Venture Capital (SCVC).

SCVC are a Bristol-based deep tech investment fund focussing on early-stage technologies for improving people and the planet. They have invested in several UoB spinout companies, including Scarlet Therapeutics.

We were delighted to welcome John Williams, Partner, and Laura Davies, Investment Manager, to the university to talk to researchers about the Science Creates ecosystem and how SCVC is driving advanced technology development. They provided valuable insights into what makes a successful deep tech company, deep tech technology-product fit and how UoB and SCVC work together to advance university research commercialisation. This was followed by an insightful talk by Ash Toye, Professor of Cell Biology and founder of Scarlet Therapeutics. He discussed his journey as a founder backed by SCVC, focussing on his path translating research from the lab to a funded spinout company. He provided a wealth of valuable insights and learnings for other prospective spinout company founders in the university.

We had some fantastic questions in our Q&A, which was followed by lunch and 1:1s with John and Laura, enabling researchers to ask questions and get valuable feedback on their emerging venture ideas.

We would like to extend our thanks to Laura, John and Ash for coming to speak, and to all those who attended. To discuss potential funding and investment opportunities for your research, including SCVC, reach out to red-innovation.ac.uk to get support from and discuss your idea with a UoB commercialisation manager.

The next Enterprise Roadshow is on the 16th of October at 12:30 pm, featuring ICURe. Come along to learn more about this leading Innovate UK-funded accelerator, what it offers to academics thinking of spinning out a company or licensing their research outputs to industry, the funding and support on offer and how to apply to the programme. Lunch will be provided to registrants.

Please register here.

This ICURe seminar is relevant to both DREI colleagues and researchers (PhD, ECR, mid-career and PI) who might be interested in learning more about routes to impact and making research sustainable.