Investment analysis January to June 2018

Technology transfer has been on an upswing for a while – illustrated particularly in our five-year data review published in GUV’s May 2018 issue. In that analysis, we noted that 2017 featured the highest number of investments over that period – 478 – though the number has since risen slightly to 481 as a few additional historical deals have been added to our database. If that seems a lot, and it is compared with 2016’s lull of just 380 deals, consider this – by the end of June, the count for 2018 already stood at 409. And June itself proved to be a true blockbuster of a month by clocking 111 investments – nearly twice as many as the same month last year, when GUV tracked 59 deals. There is often increased activity in June as universities ramp up the news flow ahead of the summer holidays but, astoundingly, June this year towers even over September 2017, when several universities revealed spinouts launched during the previous academic year without specifying months, leading to companies being added to our database that month. The momentum from June is unlikely to continue through this current quarter – in July there has so far been a reduced news flow on the GUV website as universities reduce their activities for the summer break. While we may see a spike again in August and September when institutions publish their annual reviews, it remains to be seen whether any will break through the threshold of 100 deals again. Healthcare continues to be the source of most deals in technology transfer, though the rise of the industrial, IT and consumer sectors is notable. With institutions also increasingly looking towards departments such as social sciences and creative industries – the latter was the subject of a panel discussion at the latest PraxisAuril conference (see special report) – it will be interesting to track whether life sciences will continue to be the dominant sector. More deals do not necessarily equate to more money overall – indeed the nearly $1.5bn disclosed in June appears relatively low compared with March and April, both of which also broke through $1bn but with significantly fewer deals. However, there are two key points to be made. First, GUV has not tracked more than $1bn in total investments in a single month since January 2016, and there have already been three months this year in which more than this milestone has been raised. Second, even in…

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