Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC), a leading venture capital firm embedded in the Cambridge ecosystem, has launched a new £100 million Opportunity Fund – anchored by Aviva Investors and British Patient Capital – to invest in growth stage deep tech and life sciences companies.
The fund has already made its first two investments – into Pragmatic Semiconductor, one of the UK’s largest and most innovative chip designers and manufacturers, and Riverlane, the leading quantum error correction company.
With up to £20 million per investment into later-stage rounds of deep tech and life sciences companies, the Opportunity Fund aims to address the UK’s scale-up financing gap, which forces many of Britain’s most promising companies to seek overseas funding to support their growth. Developing home-grown global technology businesses is a central theme of the Government’s plans to create Europe’s Silicon Valley, with Cambridge at the heart of the transformation.
The fund has received significant backing from Aviva Investors and British Patient Capital, demonstrating the appetite of prominent institutional investors to invest in growth-stage deep tech and life sciences companies – and the potential returns available from the UK’s maturing scale-up ecosystem.
Since its inception in 2013, exits from CIC’s portfolio include the sale of gene therapy company Gyroscope Therapeutics to Novartis for $1.5 billion, the $285 million acquisition of pet treatment developer PetMedix by Zoetis, the sale of liquid biopsy platform Inivata to NeoGenomics for $390 million, and the sale of sound recognition developer Audio Analytic. CIC’s portfolio company Bicycle Therapeutics listed on [the] NASDAQ in 2019.
The team at Cambridge Innovation Capital. Their website boosts ‘diversity of thought, experience, and background breeds success. We believe our experience and talent can help others. Collectively we invest to achieve positive outcomes for our founders, investors, and society’.
Andrew Williamson, Managing Partner at CIC, said: “CIC has traditionally invested in early-stage opportunities around Cambridge and has seen many of these companies mature into highly commercial businesses developing proven technologies.
“With this new fund we will support our portfolio companies, and scaleups from the UK ecosystem, as they reach a defining moment in their growth – and at exactly the point where the UK often loses its most exciting businesses.
“We want to be a part of that change, and we’re delighted to be working with Aviva Investors and British Patient Capital to achieve this ambition.”
Ben Luckett, Managing Director, Venture and Strategic Capital, at Aviva Investors, said: “We are very pleased to complete our latest investment in the Cambridge innovation cluster. CIC has a wealth of expertise in life sciences and deep tech, discovering and supporting pioneering companies like Pragmatic and Riverlane which are putting the UK at the forefront of global innovation.
“As an investor with a long-standing presence in Cambridge, we understand its reputation as a world-leading technology cluster, the huge value of the unique ideas being created here, and their potential to create growth, success, and impact. We believe CIC’s new Fund and its unrivalled access to these early-stage companies, will enable us to support their growth whilst aiming to deliver long-term investment outcomes.”
Christine Hockley, Managing Director, Funds, British Patient Capital, said: “We’re pleased to be expanding our relationship with CIC. Cambridge has long been a global research centre, but it is now a growing hub for breakthrough technology as its spin-out ecosystem matures.
“CIC has unparalleled access to the opportunities emerging from that ecosystem and is providing critical growth funding that can help these businesses to reach their commercial potential, ultimately allowing British entrepreneurs to build successful, globally competitive companies.”
Cambridge was ranked as the world’s leading science and technological cluster by intensity by the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2024. University of Cambridge affiliates have won 125 Nobel Prizes and founded many of the UK’s most successful science and technology companies, including ARM Holdings, Abcam, Darktrace, and Bicycle Therapeutics. Venture capital investment in Cambridge has surged, hitting almost £1 billion in 2024, and solidifying the region’s reputation as a breeding ground for the next generation of global technology leaders.
About Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC)
Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC) is a leading venture investor backing and building category-leading deep tech and life sciences companies. CIC currently manages in excess of £600 million, has invested in over 40 companies, and has a privileged relationship with the University of Cambridge, Europe’s top source of founders for venture-backed start-ups.
Cambridge Innovation Capital Manager Limited (FRN:918898) is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. For more information, please visit cic.vc or follow on X at @CIC_vc and LinkedIn.
About Pragmatic
Pragmatic are world leaders in semiconductor innovation, revolutionising fabrication with ultra-low-cost, flexible integrated circuit technology that makes it quick and easy to embed intelligence almost anywhere. CIC has invested in Pragmatic since its Series A funding round, including participation in the company’s £182 million Series D funding round in 2023.
About Riverlane
Riverlane’s technology addresses the complex challenges of error correction and quantum algorithm development and paves the way for quantum computers to solve problems that are currently intractable for even the most powerful classical computers. CIC has invested in Riverlane from its Series A round, including the $75 million Series C round raised in 2024.
About Aviva Investors
Aviva Investors is the global asset management business of Aviva plc. The business delivers investment management solutions, services, and client-driven performance to clients worldwide. Aviva Investors operates in 14 countries in Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, and the United Kingdom with £234 billion in assets under management as at 30 June 2024.
About British Patient Capital
British Patient Capital is the trading name of British Patient Capital Limited, a wholly owned commercial subsidiary of British Business Bank plc, the UK government’s economic development bank. It forms part of the British Business Bank’s plc’s commercial arm.
Its mission is to enable long-term investment in innovative firms led by ambitious entrepreneurs who want to build large scale businesses. Launched in June 2018, British Patient Capital has £2.5 billion to invest over 10 years in venture and venture growth capital to support high growth potential innovative UK businesses in accessing the long-term financing they require to scale up. Find out more at britishpatientcapital.co.uk.
British Business Bank plc and its subsidiary entities are not banking institutions and do not operate as such. They are not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). A complete legal structure chart for British Business Bank plc and its subsidiaries can be found on the British Business Bank plc website.
British Patient Capital makes commitments and invests on its own behalf and on behalf of third-party investors whose investments British Patient Capital manages.
This investment from British Patient Capital does not amount to any endorsement or warranty from British Patient Capital, the British Business Bank plc, or the government of the UK.
