Companies at Norwich Research Park that are start-ups, spin-outs or scale-ups, focused on solutions that mitigate against the dual crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, will now have access to specialist funding to help them develop and commercialise their propositions.
Specialist climate and impact investor Greensphere Capital has launched the Gaia Sciences Innovation partnership with funding of £75m raised, closed and available to invest in and scale world-leading businesses to emerge from the world’s largest group of globally-renowned bioscience and environmental science institutes based in the UK. The full fund is expected to close at £100m in Q1 of 2025.
Gaia Sciences Innovation is partnering with leading UK research institutions that are home to more than 4,000 scientists, researchers and conservationists, including the six Partner organisations at Norwich Research Park – the Earlham Institute, John Innes Centre, Quadram Institute, The Sainsbury Laboratory, the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the University of East Anglia. Other UK institutes include RBG Kew, ZSL, University of York and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology.
Based across the UK with a particular focus in regional research hubs such as Norwich and York, the Gaia Sciences Innovation fund will invest in start-up, spin-out and scale-up businesses linked to the institutions based there, that can help tackle biodiversity loss and climate change. These companies will benefit from ongoing access to leading-edge scientific expertise in areas such as plant, fungal and animal sciences, ecology and hydrology, soil and microbiomes and engineering biology.
Partner organisations of Gaia Sciences Innovation will also benefit from any new spin-outs through profit share (via co-ownership) and license fees which will then enable them to fund future research and further build their organisational capacity. The spin-out companies should also provide a virtuous loop of valuable data from operating environments for scientists to refine and improve intellectual property.
Divya Seshamani, Managing Partner at Greensphere Capital, said, “We are very excited about the huge potential our fund can unlock at science hubs such as the one at Norwich Research Park. With four world-leading research institutes, one of the UK’s best universities and a top university hospital all on one site, it is in a unique position in the UK to advance thinking and solutions to those biodiversity loss and climate change issues that are in most urgent need of our attention.
“We believe the best way to implement scientific breakthroughs in these areas is by setting up companies that can scale up to deliver the solutions. Starting or scaling up a company requires capital that is often not freely available from public sector funds so it is down to specialist investors like us to see the opportunities and to provide the funds needed to take the products to market. Norwich Research Park is definitely going to be a hotbed for our funding and we cannot wait to start using it to make a difference.”
Roz Bird, CEO, Anglia Innovation Partnership, the campus management organisation at Norwich Research Park, said: “This is fantastic news and provides researchers here at Norwich Research Park with a great opportunity to turn their ideas into credible businesses. Much of the research conducted at Norwich Research Park is truly ground-breaking on a global scale but often the solutions that are discovered to some of the greatest challenges we face in the areas of biodiversity loss and climate change cannot be fast tracked because of the lack of investment available.
“Having the Gaia Sciences Innovation fund available now means that many more breakthrough discoveries will have a much better chance of being translated into sustainable businesses. This will be great news, not just for Norwich Research Park, but for Norwich and the county of Norfolk as a whole as it offers the potential for more jobs, a greater contribution to the local economy and attracting much needed external investment.”
Divya Seshamani will be speaking at Norwich Research Park’s next Enterprise Tuesday event on 26 November, where it showcases the innovation and research breakthroughs made by researchers across the campus who are translating that into start up and spin out companies. She will outline how researchers and entrepreneurs with a good business idea can access funding. The event is being held at the John Innes Conference Centre, beginning at 1.30pm. It is a free event that is open to anyone interested in attending.
