King’s College London spinouts secured £134 million in equity investment in 2022, the fourth-largest amount of all UK universities.
University spinout companies use research, inventions and other intellectual property owned by the university as the basis for a business. They provide a significant source of income for universities as well as a practical manifestation of the research conducted therein.
The report, produced by Beauhurst, an analytics company, and commissioned by Parkwalk, the UK’s largest investor in university spinouts, used data gathered in 2022.
KCL ranks far ahead of University College London, which saw just £29.1 million of investments in its spinouts, but behind Imperial College London, University of Cambridge and University of Oxford, which secured £249 million, £365 million and £844 million respectively.
Speaking to Roar News, a spokesman for King’s College London said:
“King’s consistently generates high levels of investment, which reflects the quality and innovation of our spinouts…we are committed to being in service to society which is reflected in our focus on taking innovation and creating impact by supporting spinouts and startups which are providing solutions to key global challenges, including in areas such as health, bio and med tech.”
Support for spinouts and startups is delivered through Innovation@Kings which fuses several different departments, including the Entrepreneurship Institute, an accelerator for student and staff-led businesses.
While ranking fourth among top universities in the UK is an achievement in itself, especially since KCL has fallen in university rankings for several years running, the figures represent a fall in investment by £111 million since the previous report, which used data from 2021.
However, total investment in UK university spinouts reduced from £2.73 billion in 2021 to £2.34 billion in 2022, meaning falling investment into KCL’s spinouts is part of a national trend. However, KCL’s fall of 45% significantly outpaces the national fall of 14%.
A spokesman for KCL pointed to “an especially intensive and successful round of investment last year” as well as the fluctuating nature of investments as reasons for this fall in investment.
