University of Oxford Isis Fund II reaches funding target of £2m, closes

24th February 2015

Oxford University Innovation and Parkwalk Advisors announced today that the University of Oxford Isis Fund II has raised over £2 million, exceeding its funding target, and will close to new investors. The fund achieved its initial target in less than four weeks and will close at almost twice that level.

Oxford University Innovation executive director Linda Naylor said: “In 2014, Oxford University Innovation oversaw a record £2.6m in proof-of-concept funding flow into over twenty new Oxford technologies and ventures. The first University of Oxford Isis Fund was a cornerstone of this achievement, and we already have a pipeline of promising technologies which will apply to this second Fund over the coming year.

“These Funds will again play a critical role in providing finance so new companies are properly resourced for the initial stages of commercial product development.”

The University of Oxford Isis Fund I invested in stroke-diagnostics specialist Brainomix which went on to raise £1.2m and won numerous awards and grants, Oxtex, the developer of a novel intelligent tissue expander, Salunda, the manufacturer of a contactless sensor for condition monitoring and automated sentiment analysis company TheySay.

Parkwalk Advisors’ Moray Wright said: “These Funds provides private investors, particularly University of Oxford alumni and friends, with quite a unique chance to invest in early stage technology companies as they spin-out of the University.

“And as these companies become successful, investors in the funds also stand to gain from the tax reliefs offered under the Enterprise Investment Scheme and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme.”

Since 1987, Oxford University Innovation has been responsible for creating spin-out companies based on academic research from the University of Oxford. It has spun-out a new company every two months on average. Over £266 million in external investment has been raised by Isis spin-out companies since 2000, and five are currently listed on London’s AIM market.

Parkwalk Advisors is a UK technology-specialist EIS fund management firm. Parkwalk aims to launch the University of Oxford Isis Fund III in Q4 2015 or Q1 2016.

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