Imperial has launched a new round of the Imperial College Enterprise Fund (ICEF), which is raising funds from investors to support spinouts and startups with a strong connection to the College. The aim is to raise £2 million and more that can be used to support innovative early-stage startups with great commercial potential.
“Young companies can come to us, at any point in their planning, and say: we’ve got an idea and we need half a million pounds or a million pounds to implement it,” says Dr Brijesh Roy, Head of Startup Investment Funds at Imperial. He can then advise them on preparing their approach to investors, and present their case to the ICEF investment committee. “If the committee likes the idea, it can give them some of that money, and we can help them find the rest.”
This will be the third venture fund Imperial has created, building on the success of its first iteration in 2020 and its second in 2021. These raised £2 million and £1 million respectively, and have made a total of 11 investments to date. Crucially, the process of becoming investment-ready and the backing of ICEF has helped enable these companies collectively to raise £25 million in seed and later rounds from a variety of investors.
