Guest blog: Cambridge Innovation Capital Fund II

Guest blog by Andrew Williamson, Managing Partner of Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC)

This week we announced that CIC has raised £225 million ($300 million) for our oversubscribed second fund, Fund II.

CIC was founded to improve the success rate of businesses originating from the University of Cambridge and the broader Cambridge ecosystem, to encourage more academics and entrepreneurs to build businesses.

We have a unique positioning as the leading Series A VC firm connected with Cambridge. With this new fund, we continue our special relationship with the University of Cambridge and the CIC co-founded accelerators, relationships that provide CIC with unparalleled access to exceptional investment opportunities.

The opportunity, and top-quality deal flow, in Cambridge continues to grow. CIC’s first fund invested in more than 30 companies, and Fund II has already made six investments - Riverlane, a quantum computing software provider; Pretzel Therapeutics, a leading developer of mitochondrial therapeutics; Epitopea, a cancer immunotherapeutics company; Microbiotica, a leading player in microbiome-based therapeutics and biomarkers; Seldon, an industry-leading machine learning deployment company; and Salience Labs, the photonic compute company.

Half of the capital raised in Fund II has come from UK-based investors, but we’re also proud to have attracted investment into the UK, via CIC, from around the world. With Fund II, CIC now manages over £500 million, giving us the scale to support our portfolio companies throughout their life cycle, providing not just investment capital but strategic and operational support as well.

In addition to direct investment from CIC, we are very proud that our companies have attracted over £2 billion of co-investment from investors around the world.

The impact of CIC’s support in transitioning innovation and entrepreneurship into global businesses is a source of great pride to our team. Our investments are expected to deliver a significant and positive impact on society. With our support, CMR Surgical has grown rapidly in recent years. Its next-generation Versius robotic system is bringing the benefits of keyhole surgery to patients around the world.

Another of our companies, Pragmatic Semiconductor, has launched a low-cost flexible electronics manufacturing process which is disrupting the existing silicon chip manufacturing market and enabling a whole new class of electronics. Innovators around the world are designing billions of chips to be manufactured at Pragmatic’s new facility in Durham.

The increasing connectivity of our network of academics and entrepreneurs means that our businesses are born global, and can attract global investment and talent, achieving global impact more rapidly than ever before.

With Fund II, we are eager to continue our mission of building substantial businesses that bring benefit to Cambridge, the UK and the world.

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