Leading institutional investors have invested £50m in Northern Gritstone, a life sciences and deep-tech investment firm focused on Northern England, bringing its total capital investment to £362m.
£35m of the new funding commitments comes from Northern LGPS, the collective asset pool for Greater Manchester, Merseyside and West Yorkshire Pension Funds, with a further £15m boost from new investors Fulcrum Asset Management and Aviva.
Northern Gritstone has also announced the appointment of Greater Manchester Pension Fund assistant director Paddy Dowdall to its board as non-executive director.
Active since May 2022, Northern Gritstone has already made 32 investments in early-stage businesses in the North of England, expanded its investment team and built NG Innovation Services, its venture building ‘toolkit’ offering: talent management, growth advice, business services, and its “accelerator program”, NG Studios.
The company supports new areas of development and future job creation in deep tech and life sciences, including semi-conductor design and manufacturing, novel materials, secure computing, artificial intelligence, health tech and gene therapies.
Assistant director of Greater Manchester Pension Fund, and Northern Gritstone non-executive director, Paddy Dowdall, said of the investment: “Northern LGPS’ commitment to Northern Gritstone aligns with the UK government’s mission to support UK innovation and growth through pension fund investing.”
Managing director, venture and strategic capital at Aviva Investors, Ben Luckett, added: “Aviva has a substantial presence across the North of England and is delighted to support growth investments developed within the region through our investment with Northern Gritstone.
“University spin outs will help power innovation, drive tangible real-world impact, and support the UK to get ready for the future,” he said.
David Merton, executive director of Fulcrum Asset Management, said: “Our venture capital strategy is built around identifying and backing leading hubs of innovation. It became clear during our due diligence that Northern Gritstone’s design and focus on spinouts from leading universities in the North of England strongly aligns with this.”
Northern Gritstone chair, Lord Jim O’Neill, also added: “We are very grateful for this further support from investors in our journey to develop world winning businesses in the North of England originating from our university ecosystem and contributing to the future of higher value-added activity and the North’s productivity.”
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