The Westminster government is accepting the recommendations of a review under which UK universities will take a smaller stake in spin-outs in a bid to drive greater private investment.
As part of his autumn statement on 21 November, chancellor Jeremy Hunt was set to announce that he was accepting the 11 recommendations made by the review, led by University of Oxford vice-chancellor Irene Tracey and Andrew Williamson, a managing partner of the University of Cambridge’s in-house venture capital fund.
New guidelines will recommend that universities take an equity share expected to be between 10 per cent and 30 per cent, compared with as much as 50 per cent in some spin-outs historically.
The idea is that academics and other founders will be able to keep a greater share of their inventions, which they can then sell to private equity firms and other investors to secure more funding and grow more quickly.
