The fund has already made its first two investments – into Pragmatic Semiconductor, one of the UK’s largest and most innovative chip designers and manufacturers, and Riverlane, the quantum error correction company.

With up to £20 million per investment into later-stage rounds of deeptech and life sciences companies, the Opportunity Fund aims to address the UK’s scaleup financing gap, which forces many of Britain’s most promising companies to seek overseas funding to support their growth. Developing home-grown global technology businesses is a central theme of the Government’s plans to create Europe’s Silicon Valley, with Cambridge at the heart of the transformation.

The fund has received significant backing from Aviva Investors and British Patient Capital, demonstrating the appetite of prominent institutional investors to invest in growth-stage deeptech and life sciences companies – and the potential returns available from the UK’s maturing scaleup ecosystem. Since its inception in 2013, exits from CIC’s portfolio include the sale of gene therapy company Gyroscope Therapeutics to Novartis for $1.5 billion, the $285 million acquisition of pet treatment developer PetMedix by Zoetis, the sale of liquid biopsy platform Inivata to NeoGenomics for $390 million, and the sale of sound recognition developer Audio Analytic. CIC’s portfolio company Bicycle Therapeutics listed on [the] Nasdaq in 2019.

Andrew Williamson, Managing Partner at CIC, said: “CIC has traditionally invested in early-stage opportunities around Cambridge and has seen many of these companies mature into highly commercial businesses developing proven technologies. With this new fund we will support our portfolio companies, and scaleups from the UK ecosystem, as they reach a defining moment in their growth – and at exactly the point where the UK often loses its most exciting businesses. We want to be a part of that change, and we’re delighted to be working with Aviva Investors and British Patient Capital to achieve this ambition.”

Ben Luckett, Managing Director, Venture and Strategic Capital, at Aviva Investors, said: “We are very pleased to complete our latest investment in the Cambridge innovation cluster. CIC has a wealth of expertise in life sciences and deeptech, discovering and supporting pioneering companies like Pragmatic and Riverlane which are putting the UK at the forefront of global innovation. As an investor with a long-standing presence in Cambridge, we understand its reputation as a world-leading technology cluster, the huge value of the unique ideas being created here, and their potential to create growth, success and impact. We believe CIC’s new Fund and its unrivalled access to these early-stage companies, will enable us to support their growth whilst aiming to deliver long-term investment outcomes.”

Christine Hockley, Managing Director, Funds, British Patient Capital, said: “We’re pleased to be expanding our relationship with CIC. Cambridge has long been a global research centre, but it is now a growing hub for breakthrough technology as its spin-out ecosystem matures. CIC has unparalleled access to the opportunities emerging from that ecosystem and is providing critical growth funding that can help these businesses to reach their commercial potential, ultimately allowing British entrepreneurs to build successful, globally competitive companies.”

Cambridge was ranked as the world’s leading science and technological cluster by intensity by the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2024. University of Cambridge affiliates have won 125 Nobel Prizes and founded many of the UK’s most successful science and technology companies, including ARM Holdings, Abcam, Darktrace, and Bicycle Therapeutics. Venture capital investment in Cambridge has surged, hitting almost £1 billion in 2024, and solidifying the region’s reputation as a breeding ground for the next generation of global technology leaders.

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