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Founder-friendly equity and friction-free deals are key for UK spinout growth

University spinout equity
Image credit: Anton_Ivanov / Shutterstock

As we head into a general election, we can expect politicians from all parties to underline the importance of science and innovation to growing our economy. There’s no doubt about it – the wellspring of innovation and technology is coming primarily from SMEs, and university spinouts lead the way.

Increasingly, researchers are working with tech transfer offices in universities to form businesses to take their research to market and scale their discoveries and technologies for the wider good. It’s been a trend that’s been gathering pace for some years, so it really does feel like the time is ripe for ensuring founders can leverage the investment they need while getting the right returns that make the hard graft of establishing a business worthwhile.

There’s a lot of talk about the ambition to make the UK a science and technology superpower. And the UK has the potential to achieve that – four UK universities are in the global top 10 and many others are pioneering in specialist areas such as deep tech, and with a naturally entrepreneurial spirit and hunger for innovation....