Northern Gritstone

Northern Gritstone has a new team member. Simon Braham joins as Head of Portfolio. An experienced private equity investor, Simon was previously with Bridges Fund Management Ltd. leading its Sustainable Growth Funds in the North. Simon will be helping drive growth by working closely with the management teams in our portfolio companies. Welcome Simon to the Gritstone family. #profitwithpurpose

Chad Hoskins is one of five US CEOs within the Northern Gritstone portfolio of 39 life sciences and tech companies. He leads Phagenyx - Phagenesis a company based in Manchester that is working to address the problem of dysphagia or difficulty swallowing after an acute brain injury. He brings over twenty years of experience in medtech and the commercialisation of paradigm shifting technologies. World-class talent - both domestic and international - is key to building the North of England’s innovation ecosystem. Bringing in this talent is how we commercialise the 'raw ingredients' of world-leading science and technology in the North of England. Hear Chad talk about why he joined Phagenesis, the company's commercialisation journey to date, and his scale up vision post a successful Series D raise. #profitwithpurpose

Congratulations to University of Oxford on the acquisition of its pioneering medical transplant spinout OrganOx. Acquired for $1.5 billion, this is the university's second £1+ billion spinout. OrganOx keeps organs alive outside of the body, as if they were still inside the body, making it possible to assess how well an organ is working before potential transplant to a human. Over 6,000 patients are alive today because of this technology, on four continents and in twelve countries. Through acquisition it will become available to many more. This is an incredible achievement on every level. Northern Gritstone, Oxford Science Enterprises and Cambridge Innovation Capital work together to promote our life sciences and tech spinouts as a unique asset class. The pipeline for opportunity is incredibly strong within our innovation clusters thanks to world-class research and talent such as OrganOx cofounders Prof. Constantin Coussios OBE FREng FMedSci and Professor Peter Friend. When these spinouts go on to exit with such success the benefits are for humanity, for the investors who supported their talented teams and for the UK. #profitwithpurpose Edward Bussey Andrew Williamson BGF LAUXERA CAPITAL PARTNERS 👉🏾 You can read more about the acquisition in this FT article by Clive Cookson http://bit.ly/4lNtYnZ

Thank you Katie Prescott of The Times for reporting on Northern Gritstone's newest investment. PhovIR Technologies is a deeptech spinout from The University of Manchester and a graduate of our pre-seed accelerator program NG Studios. What we see is only a tiny fraction of the information around us. PhovIR's optical sensing technology, however, instantly identifies substances and can be used in a portable device such as a smart phone or smart watch. Congratulations Tim Echtermeyer, Steve Turley and the PhovIR team, and welcome to our newest co-investor SCVC. #profitwithpurpose

All have raised pre-seed money. All were there to pass on their experience to the very first Northern Gritstone NG Studios powered by KQ Labs cohort on Day 1 of the program. From strategic pivots, to building talented teams, through to the operational challenge of quickly finding new lab space, here are the founder panelists with some of their key takeaways Simon Chandler CEO of Rinri Therapeutics, a spinout from The University of Sheffield developing advanced therapies for the treatment of hearing loss. The company plans to move to clinical trials having received its Clinical Trial Authorisation in June. ▶️ Start with the end in mind. Try to work out where you want to be, cast your mind forward towards commercialisation and work out the steps you need to take to achieve that. Be focused on the here and now but constantly look forward to stop yourself falling into traps ▶️ Scaling the infrastructure of a biotech with limited funds is challenging on a day-to-day basis. Think forward to what the company needs and what is cost-effective because that is how you can keep going in a cash constrained environment. Pedro Correa de Sampaio CEO and co-founder of Neobe Therapeutics, a spinout which uses synthetic biology to act as ‘trojan horses’ into solid tumors ▶️ When you are building a new type of technology building the right combination of skills in your team can be a challenge. Think about the aggregate of skills ▶️ Have a really good understanding of the data you need to unlock the next stage of funding from investors. Different investors will value different aspects of the data Ed Tate co-founder and former CSO, and now Observer, of Myricx Bio, and now starting his second spinout as a serial entrepreneur ▶️ Be aware of the value of the pivot. We started off as a small molecule focused company, and transitioned to an Antibody drug conjugate company with novel payload ahead of a £90m Series A round. That pivot was critical to enable the company to continue. 🙌🏾 It helps to hear from those who have been there and done that when it comes to building a company. Thank you to Barbara Domayne-Hayman, creator of KQ Labs, for moderating the panel, held at The Francis Crick Institute Now the hard work begins for six exciting early-stage life sciences spinouts from the Northern Arc universities. Four months until these new entrepreneurs are pitch-ready at Demo Day.  #profitwithpurpose

The UK government recognises the value of its university spinouts as a key driver for growth. And today Northern Gritstone CEO Duncan Johnson met with Varun Chandra the Prime Minister's Special Advisor on Business & Investment, alongside our peers from the university spinout ecosystem. UK university spinouts have made so much progress in the past decade (£514 million equity investment in 2014 to over £1 billion in the first half alone of 2024) but there is so much more to do to get the funding and practical support to accelerate global success stories based on today's world-class science and technology. More to come in support of innovation and growth. Cambridge Innovation Capital University of Liverpool University of Leeds The University of Sheffield The University of Manchester Brian McCaul Alistair McDermott Midlands Mindforge Diarmuid O'Brien chas bountra #profitwithpurpose

Thank you Longley Park Sixth Form students in Sheffield for having the Northern Gritstone team in to talk about and (we hope) inspire you to consider a career in venture capital. The team was very impressed with you SWOT analysis skills and enthusiasm about the typical day of a investment manager. We really enjoyed the half day with you. Now enjoy your summer break 😎 ! #profitwithpurpose

What does it mean to scale an advanced manufacturing company? We asked David Moore, CEO of Pragmatic Semiconductor, this exact question.   Pragmatic was recently referenced in the UK Government’s new Industrial Strategy as a home-grown frontier tech innovator, pioneering a new approach to designing and manufacturing semiconductors. Over a year ago, the company raised the largest Series D for any tech company in Europe and became a Northern Gritstone portfolio company Listen to Dave’s story on why with 25 years’ experience in the semiconductor industry he joined Pragmatic and how the company is expanding manufacturing capacity, growing teams and talent, maturing its business processes, and of course leveraging the ecosystem of industry partners, investors and government stakeholders. #profitwithpurpose

Very interesting piece by Frances Jones, in which Duncan Johnson gives his thoughts on British capital funding gaps and a lack of talent to support scaling tech firms. #profitwithpurpose

The Northern Gritstone team is incredibly proud to have hosted The Bahraini delegation for two days across the Northern Innovation Arc. #profitwithpurpose