Oxford Science Enterprises Raises £250 Million

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Jul 18, 2022, 02:00 ET

New funding deepens capital pool available to drive the creation and growth of transformational businesses built on ground-breaking Oxford science

OXFORD, England, July 18, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE), the independent investment company created to found, fund and build transformational businesses via its unique partnership with the University of Oxford, today announces it has raised a further £250 million ($300 million) in funding. This brings the total amount raised by OSE to more than £850 million (>$1 billion) since inception in 2015.

These funds significantly deepen OSE's capital pool and enable the Company to identify further exceptional science from the University of Oxford, providing initial funding, hands-on support and access to expert networks and start-up infrastructure, to create new spinouts across Life Sciences, Health Tech and Deep Tech.

In addition, OSE will continue to support its existing and maturing portfolio, deploying increasingly large amounts of capital in later-stage funding rounds. This ability to provide scale-up capital is crucial for OSE to enable its businesses to advance through key development milestones, maximising their chances of success and increasing potential returns and impact.

Alexis Dormandy, Chief Executive Officer, said: "We are delighted to successfully complete this new fundraising. Attracting such high quality new and existing global investors reflects their enthusiasm for the strength of Oxford's science and our plans to drive positive impact from it.

"This fundraise comes at an exciting and pivotal time for OSE. We have built a talented team and proved our model of translating ground-breaking science into a diverse portfolio of transformational businesses. Our companies are making remarkable breakthroughs from cancer, heart failure and infectious diseases, to climate change, food security and quantum computing. Over the next few years, we expect these companies will continue to make important progress; with our ongoing efforts, and the support of our shareholders, we look forward to helping them deliver impact and returns."

The fundraise announced today involved a diverse group of international investors, with strong participation from existing and new blue-chip investors, sovereign wealth funds, family offices, pension funds and asset managers.

Since founding in 2015, OSE has invested in over 80 ambitious companies built on Oxford science, committing £0.5 billion itself and attracting over £1 billion from blue-chip, global co-investors. To date OSE has helped progress 27 companies from seed to Series A and 21 to Series B and beyond, including 2 IPOs and 5 trade exits.

In addition to funding, OSE provides strategic business-building and operational support to its portfolio companies, including access to a global network of entrepreneurs and advisers, and has added over 55,000 sq ft of state-of-the-art lab and start-up space.

Notes to Editors

About Oxford Science Enterprises

Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE) is an independent, billion-pound investment company, created in 2015 to found, fund and build transformational businesses via its unique partnership with the University of Oxford, the world's #1 research university.

This partnership enables OSE to work with the brightest academic minds tackling the world's toughest challenges and guarantees unrivalled access to their scientific research.

In collaboration with its global network of entrepreneurs and advisers, OSE shapes and nurtures complex ideas into successful businesses, while targeting attractive returns for shareholders.

Actively focused on a core portfolio of around 40 companies spanning three high-growth, high-impact sectors – Life Sciences, Health Tech, and Deep Tech – the company adopts a flexible, long-term investment approach, recognising the path from ground-breaking research to global markets takes time and resilience.

To date, OSE has invested £0.5 billion in over 80 ambitious companies built on Oxford science.

A key player in Oxford's entrepreneurial ecosystem, OSE is highly motivated to foster an environment that catalyses pioneering research and steers it to commercial success.

Find out more: oxfordscienceenterprises.com | Twitter | LinkedIn

Recent Portfolio Highlights

OSE was a founding investor in Vaccitech in 2016, enabling the development of its underlying technology through several private financing rounds to its listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange in the US in 2021. Vaccitech was instrumental in the development of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, which has had a remarkable impact on human health and represents 98% of vaccines provided by COVAX.

Other notable portfolio companies in which OSE has made significant investments, include:

Base Genomics: In October 2020, the company, which developed a revolutionary early-stage cancer detection technology, was acquired by Exact Sciences for $410 million.
First Light Fusion: In April 2022, First Light announced it had achieved projectile fusion through its revolutionary approach that offers a faster and cheaper pathway to clean energy production.
ORCA Computing: In June 2022, ORCA raised $15 million in Series A financing and provided the first quantum computer to the UK Ministry of Defence to enhance its data processing capabilities.
OMass Therapeutics: In April 2022, OMass raised $100 million in Series B financing to advance its novel drug pipeline for immunology and rare diseases.
MiroBio: In June 2022, MiroBio raised $97 million in Series B financing to advance its pipeline of immune checkpoint agonists for autoimmune diseases.
moa Technology: In May 2022, moa raised $44 million in Series B financing to develop safe and sustainable herbicides and improve crop yields to feed a growing global population.

About the University of Oxford research and scientific spinout ecosystem

The University of Oxford has been ranked the #1 university in the world and #1 for research for the past six years running¹, receiving over £809m in external research funding, including grants in 2020/21.²

The University of Oxford was recently ranked as the top university in the UK for turning academic research into science-driven spinout companies, having created 193 spinouts between 2011-2021.³

Since 2015:

Over half of the companies Oxford has ever created, since its first spinout in 1957, were formed; increasing from an average of around 4-5 companies per year (pre-2014) to over 20 per year.
Investment in Oxford spinouts increased from an average of £125m per year (2011 –2015) to £650m (2016 – 2021). In 2021 alone, companies originating from Oxford raised nearly £1.4 billion in external funding⁴, which represents over half the amount raised by all UK spinouts in 2021.³
Over 400 investors have invested in Oxford spinouts⁵, in parallel stimulating a considerable influx of scientific and management talent to Oxford from around the world.

1. Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2022
2. University of Oxford – Financial Statements 2020/2021
3. Spotlight on Spinouts 2022
4. Oxford University Innovation data
5. Pitchbook: Companies based on OUI spinout list, excluding deals before 2015

Contacts:

Oxford Science Enterprises

Lisa Bedwell – [email protected]

For media enquiries:

Mark Swallow, Sandi Greenwood, Eleanor Perkin – MEDiSTRAVA Consulting, Tel: + 44 (0) 203 928 6900

[email protected]

SOURCE Oxford Science Enterprises