The rise of student entrepreneurs at British universities

Moray Wright, CEO, Parkwalk Advisors was quoted in The Sunday Times article ‘The rise of student entrepreneurs at British universities’ written by Peter Evans. To read the full article originally published on August 18 2019 please click here or see an excerpt below.

“Almost all universities now offer staff, students and alumni opportunities to start their own companies, with many courses incorporating entrepreneurship into the teaching syllabus. Tech transfer offices have increased their presence on campuses in an attempt to translate the best academic research into thriving commercial enterprises. Some investors have started backing ideas before they have even been formed into companies.

… There are signs that the entrepreneural approach is working. Since the start of 2016, nearly £4bn has been invested in British university spinouts, according to data provider Beauhurst. That ranges from relatively small cheques from angel investors to big funding rounds, such as the £100m pumped into gene sequencing company Oxford Nanopore, an Oxford spinout that rivals Illumina, in 2016.”

…”There’s been a real sea change this century,” said Moray Wright, chief executive of Parkwalk Advisors, which has invested in more than 100 spinout companies and manages investment funds for Oxford, Cambridge and Bristol universities. “The whole environment is a lot more entrepreneurial than it used to be.”

Wright points to ARM Holdings, the chip designer with Cambridge roots, as the stand-out success. It was sold to Japan’s Softbank for £24bn three years ago. Yet for some, ARM’s sale to a foreign buyer in fact represented a failure.

To read the full article in The Sunday Times, please click here.