Oxford Science Enterprises raises £250 million

Oxford, UK – 18 July 2022 – Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE) today announces it has raised a further £250 million ($300 million), bringing the total since inception in 2015 to more than £850 million (>$1 billion).

The new funds significantly strengthen OSE’s capital base, enabling it to identify and back exceptional Oxford science, create new spinouts across Life Sciences, Health Tech and Deep Tech, and provide increasing amounts of scale-up capital to support its maturing portfolio. This dual ability – to launch new companies and invest in later-stage growth – is central to maximising success and impact.

Alexis Dormandy, Chief Executive Officer at OSE, 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. With our ongoing efforts, and the support of our shareholders, we look forward to helping them deliver impact and returns.”

The fundraise was backed by a diverse group of existing and new international investors – from blue-chip institutions and sovereign wealth funds to family offices, pension funds and asset managers – reflecting global confidence in Oxford’s science and OSE’s model.

Since its founding in 2015, OSE has built a portfolio of more than 50 core companies based on Oxford science, committing over £0.5 billion itself and attracting more than £1 billion from international co-investors. To date, OSE has helped progress 27 companies from seed to Series A and 21 to Series B and beyond, including two IPOs and five trade exits. In addition to funding, OSE provides strategic support, access to a global network of entrepreneurs and advisers, and over 55,000 sq ft of state-of-the-art lab and start-up space.

Recent portfolio highlights:

• Vaccitech: A founding investor since 2016, OSE supported the development of its ChAdOx platform technology through several private financings to its Nasdaq listing in 2021. Vaccitech co-invented the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, which has had a remarkable global health impact and represents 98% of vaccines provided by COVAX.
• Base Genomics: Acquired by Exact Sciences in 2020 for $410 million, the company developed revolutionary early-stage cancer detection technology.
• First Light Fusion: In 2022 achieved projectile fusion, a world-first breakthrough offering a faster, cheaper pathway to clean energy.
• OMass Therapeutics: Raised $100 million in Series B financing in 2022 to advance its novel pipeline for immunology and rare diseases.

About the Oxford ecosystem:

Oxford University is ranked the #1 university in the world and #1 for research environment for the past six years running (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2017–2022). It is also the UK’s leading university for spinout creation, producing 193 spinouts between 2011–2021 — more than any other UK institution (Beauhurst / Royal Academy of Engineering, Spotlight on Spinouts 2022).

Since 2015:

• Over half of Oxford’s spinouts since 1957 have been created, rising from an average of 4–5 per year (pre-2014) to more than 20 per year.
• Investment in Oxford spinouts has increased from an average of £125m per year (2011–2015) to £650m (2016–2021). In 2021 alone, Oxford spinouts raised nearly £1.4 billion in external funding, representing more than half of all UK university spinout investment (Oxford University Innovation data).
• Over 400 investors have backed Oxford spinouts, stimulating a major influx of scientific and management talent into the region (PitchBook, OUI spinout list).