Cambridge Consultants launches £10 million spin-out fund

Funding opportunity

After a gap of four years the technology commercialisation specialist Cambridge Consultants is restarting its spin-out activities by setting up a new £10 million dedicated fund with Esprit Capital Partners. The money will be used to invest exclusively in Cambridge Consultants’ own technology.

Ray Edgson, Ventures Director at Cambridge Consultants commented, “To make a truly successful venture you need three key ingredients – the right people, the right technologies and the right market conditions. With confidence now restored in the global technology markets, we believe that it is people that make the essential difference between average and truly great new ventures.”

He added, “Our venturing model allows those who want to exploit their entrepreneurial skills to go on and start their own businesses, whilst being supported by our established networks and systems.”

The fund will see one new start up company created every two years on average.

Esprit Capital Partners, formed by the recent merger of Cazenove Private Equity and Prelude Ventures, was selected as partner on the basis of a tender process. Prelude has a long history of investing in early stage technology ventures.

The aim of the fund is to invest exclusively in Cambridge Consultants’ own new ventures. The first new company is expected to appear in 2007. Candidates for the next batch of ventures are expected to come from core markets, including wireless technologies, drug delivery, diagnostics, radar and electronics.

Spin-outs from Cambridge Consultants collectively employ almost 3,000 people, and the firm has created over twenty new ventures in the past twenty five years, including Domino, Xaar, Cambridge Silicon Radio, Vivid, Alphamosaic and Inca.

Prelude Ventures has been making early stage investments in UK and European technology and healthcare businesses for 21 years and manages Prelude Trust plc, while Cazenove Private Equity has been active as a cross stage investor in the European technology market since 2000, making more than 30 investments. Esprit has GBP 285m of assets under management.