Beauhurst has acquired Spinouts UK, the project and dataset run and collected by Jonathan Harris, to become a one-stop-shop for information on all of the UK’s spinout companies.
Jonathan will continue to work with us on Spinouts UK and related projects.
Commenting on the acquisition, our CEO, Toby Austin, said:
"We are delighted to be acquiring Spinouts UK and continuing our work with Jonathan. Their excellent data on spinout companies and the higher education ecosystem complements our own research in this area, and we're pleased that we can now provide better information than ever on the spinout landscape for Beauhurst subscribers. "
Jonathan Harris – who founded the ambitious Spinouts UK project, and is the owner and editor of Young Company Finance – said:
"I have worked with Beauhurst on different projects over the past couple of years, and have been impressed by their detailed and comprehensive research. I am delighted that they are now taking over our database of university spinouts and start-ups which we have built up over several years, and I look forward to continue working with the Beauhurst team as they take forward the Spinouts UK business."
What is a spinout?
An academic spinout is a company that has been created off the back of university research and IP, and developed and commercialised by the institution’s enterprise team. Usually, the management team will be former or current researchers, sometimes even PhD students. The university, or one of its connected venture funds, will provide the company with startup capital, and will usually act as a significant shareholder in the company from the start. Additionally, the company will frequently continue to have access to the academic institution’s workspace facilities.
Spinout data on the Beauhurst platform
As well as our acquisition of Spinouts UK, we’re now adding spinouts to our tracking triggers. This means that any company spun out from a UK higher education institution after 2011 will be tracked – with our highly detailed profiles – on the Beauhurst platform, and subscribers will be able to search across these companies using hundreds of variables with our advanced search tool. Look out for the spinout badge on any company profile that meets this new trigger.
Number of uk spinouts since 2011
number of new companies on beauhurst
What does this mean for existing Spinouts UK customers?
There will be no change to the Spinouts UK operation in the short to medium term, as Jonathan Harris and Young Company Finance will continue to work with Beauhurst to maintain their database and publish Quarterly Journals during an interim handover period.
Which universities have the most spinouts?
The additional data allows us to identify the most active university commercialisation teams across the UK. Unsurprisingly, Oxford and Cambridge top the rankings as the UK’s leading universities. Our recent articles on the Silicon Fen and Silicon Spires goes into more detail about these regional high-growth hubs and their growing tech scene.
Top UK academic institutions by number of spinouts since 2011
| Academic institution | No. of spinouts |
|---|---|
|
University of Oxford |
130 |
|
University of Cambridge |
110 |
|
Imperial College London |
85 |
|
University College London |
49 |
|
University of Edinburgh |
45 |
|
University of Manchester |
34 |
|
University of Strathclyde |
34 |
|
University of Warwick |
29 |
|
Queen's University Belfast |
29 |
|
University of Bristol |
25 |
The University of Bristol also makes the list, and garnered media attention earlier this year when its young life science spinout Ziylo was acquired in a deal worth £623m. This is the largest acquisition of a UK spinout founded after 2011.Â
The new spinouts data also shows the most active VCs investing in this space, led by the IP group with 63 investments. See our full analysis here.
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