Oxford University pauses its tech spin outs

Business news | July 25, 2022

By Nick Flaherty

quantum Materials & processes

Political uncertainty in the UK has delayed the latest technology spinouts from Oxford University.

“Oxford University Innovation has not created any new companies during Q2, while we navigate the practicalities of the new UK National Securities & Investment Act,” it said in its latest update. “There are at least eight in the pipe ready to spin [but] in lieu of company creation, we do have many new deals and Oxford spinouts raised £250m in the past quarter.”

OUI is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the University of Oxford managing the University’s technology transfer and consulting activities. It works closely with fund Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE) which last week raised £250m, bringing its total amount under management to over $1bn. This makes OSE the world’s second largest university fund after the Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, but the largest focussed on a single institution.

It has investment in quantum computing companies such as Oxford Quantum Circuits and ORCA Computing as well as Oxford Ionics which is working closely with Infineon Technologies. It has also seen the spinout of PQShield for post quantum encryption technologies and battery management firm Brill.

Last year the university spun out 31 companies.

From the launch of the first spinout, Oxford Instruments, in 1957, the University has created 287 companies since, 283 of them through OUI. Over half that number were created since OSE was founded in 2015 by David Norwood, previously the founder of the IP Group, with OSE backing over 80 of them.

innovation.ox.ac.uk/; oxfordscienceenterprises.com/