Lord Mandelson and Lord Drayson last week addressed the UK Innovation Investment Fund Investor Summit and highlighted the potential that exists to invest in technology in the UK. Some of the UK's leading technology businesses showcased their leading edge products at the summit in the City of London.
The event brought together leading institutional investors in the UK, venture capital fund managers and some of the UK's most innovative and exciting technology companies. The summit was also addressed by Dr Mike Lynch, founder and CEO of Autonomy, and other successful technology investors.
Lord Drayson, science and innovation minister, said: "Today is absolutely the time to invest in our most promising technology companies. We've had a decade of record investment in science and innovation and we're seeing signs of recovery in the economy. The UK Innovation Investment Fund that we are showcasing this morning is an exciting proposition for institutional investors."
The summit is about providing more information on the fund and the types of companies and technologies it will invest in to experienced fund managers. The event marks another key milestone in the development of the UK Innovation Investment Fund. The new Fund will invest in high growth small businesses and start ups in strategically important sectors such as life sciences, clean technologies, digital and advanced manufacturing.
The Fund was announced by the prime minister on 29 June as part of the government's strategy for Building Britain's Future. BIS, DECC and DoH will invest a total of £150m alongside private sector investment on an equal basis. It is the government's ambition to create a Fund worth £1bn over the 15 year life of the Fund.
The government is currently undertaking due diligence on the shortlisted bids from prospective Fund of Funds Managers. The appointment to manage the UKIIF will be made by Christmas, enabling the Fund to commence investing in early 2010.
Companies show casing at the Investor Summit include:
Horizon Discovery
Horizon is developing and marketing novel a suite of in-vitro discovery and diagnostic tools called X-MAN cell lines that accurately mimic the disease genetics of target populations. Horizon has recently entered into a 4 year collaboration with Novartis to use X-MAN cancer models as part of Novartis's drug discovery research programme.
ApaTech
ApaTech was spun out of Queen Mary University London in 2001 with the rights to bone materials research and IP from London and Cambridge Universities. CE Mark and 510(k) clearances have been made for its first bone graft substitute ApaPore and for Actifuse, a new class of bone graft material that combines osteoconductive, osteostimulatory and bioactive activities, in a wide range of orthopedic and spinal applications. ApaTechTM is a leader in orthobiologics, through its development, production and sales of world-leading synthetic bone graft technology and specialises in producing synthetic bone repair material.
NaturalMotion
NaturalMotion is a leading entertainment software company with 76 employees split across the head office in Oxford (England) and regional offices San Francisco (California) and Seoul (Korea). The company produces the widely-adopted animation technologies euphoria, morpheme and endorphin, used across the game and movie industries by companies such as Rockstar Games, LucasArts, Disney, Codemasters and Bioware. In addition, to Grand Theft Auto, Star Wars NaturalMotion is also developing Backbreaker, an American Football game for Xbox 360 and PS3. The recently released iPhone version has become a worldwide number one hit.
TMO Renewables
Founded in 2002, TMO Renewables is a developer of advanced biofuels production technology. At the core of the TMO Bioethanol Process is a bacterial ethanologen, developed in their laboratories, which by the end of 2007 was performing at targets set by the US Department of Energy for 2011. This thermophilic organism operates at high temperatures and digests a wide range of raw materials extremely rapidly. TMO has developed a process which exploits these properties to make ethanol from cellulosic biomass in a manner which eliminates the economic barriers which hitherto have restricted the commercial development of cellulosic ethanol production.
