Report

Spotlight on Spinouts

The report contains much that will interest universities, spinouts and policymakers.

• Spinout activity is concentrated in a few institutions. The top four – Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and UCL – account for around one third of all spinouts.
• Pharmaceuticals and medtech are the largest sectors, with the UK showing a rapidly developing AI sector.
• Where we had data, only 20% of founding teams included a female member and only 12% of spinouts have at least one female director.
• Data is not available to examine ethnicity of spinout founders and directors, a key barrier to understanding and improving diversity.
• On average it takes a spinout almost 10 years to exit by IPO or acquisition, and 41% of spinouts ceased activity between 5 and 10 years of age.
• Spinouts raise over £1b a year, but funding is highly concentrated, with a surprisingly small number of investors accounting for the bulk of investments. Woodford, the largest of these, collapsed during 2019.
• Grants are becoming increasingly important for spinouts.
• The increase in average investment size might suggest a trend of more follow-on funding and less new investment.