The commercialisation firm recovered from an $18.2m loss in 2016 by acquiring Touchstone Innovations, and opening a division focused on Australia and New Zealand.

UK-based commercialisation firm IP Group generated an annual profit of £53.4m ($72m) in 2017 to recover from an $18.2m loss the previous year. IP Group’s portfolio value rose to $1.5bn over the period, up from $757m in 2016, as the firm absorbed $475m from the books of Touchstone Innovations, which it acquired for approximately $641m in November 2017. The firm realised portfolio gains of $127m in 2017, up from $8m the year before, while putting up $96.1m in funding for its portfolio companies. IP Group also invested $18m through its spinout-focused fund management arm Parkwalk Advisors, another acquisition for the IP Group fold. In all, IP Group’s portfolio companies raised $425m in capital over the course of the year, compared with a 2016 total of $284m. The firm’s stakes include one in Oxford Nanopore Technologies, a UK-based sequencing spinout from University of Oxford which secured $140m in capital last month. The firm undertook a $260m placing in May 2017, using the cash to launch IP Group Australasia to manage university partnerships in Australia and New Zealand involving a projected investment of at least $147m over 10 years. Alan Aubrey, chief executive of IP Group, said: “2017 was a significant year for the company, with the combination of IP Group and Touchstone Innovations and the acquisition of Parkwalk Advisors helping to create a business with greater resources that is better equipped to find, invest and develop businesses based on science and technology. “The signing of new partnerships in Australia and New Zealand extended our reach into new geographies while our capital raise not only strengthened our balance sheet but also saw the introduction of major new institutional investors.”

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