“I have never believed you have to accept things as they stand.”
This quote from Susan Searle, chief executive of Imperial Innovations Group from 2002 to July 2013, comes after her more than 20 years’ experience around the world of international university commercialisation. It points to the drive, energy and determination required to take the technology transfer office (TTO) of UK university Imperial College London (ICL) to listing on Aim, the alternative investment market, and becoming one of the largest and most successful long-term investors in science-based innovations.
It is perhaps a far cry from her MA in chemistry from Oxford, after which Searle was in business development in industry, including oil major Royal Dutch Shell, rather than a university environment. But being outside an ivory tower was crucial training for Searle. She said: “It was about getting things running, in a commercial setting.”
She subsequently worked at Australia-based Monash University’s Montech technology transfer office (TTO) from 1990 to 1991 and, returning to the UK, she spoke to ICL, which at the time had a small TTO.
In 1997, she became a director of electric motors maker Turbo Power Systems, spun out of the mechanical engineering department of ICL and now listed on the London Stock Exchange. Turbo Power was spun out before the university could invest and Searle said the period was about dealing with how to create a company and what the position of the faculty would be.
In 2002, Richard Sykes, former chairman of drugs company GlaxoSmithKline and rector of ICL, appointed Searle chief executive of Imperial Innovations Group, a commercialization unit able to take stakes in ICL start-ups.
Imperial Innovations usually gets 50% of a spin-out and the ICL academic community keeps the other half, before funding comes in and there is a dilution.
Searle said: “Providing money and support is very different from just trying to help scientists raise money and find management. With no seed money the job is very difficult.
“My brief was to provide value for the university by getting the job done properly and bringing financial value. It was to be a business about returns. The independent structure worked and we spun out and took in external financing through a private placement [in 2005] and then, when institutional investors were satisfied, floated a year after, which was quicker than expected as the business was performing so well.
The big transformation near the end of my time was broadening from Imperial College spin-outs to other universities – Cambridge, Oxford and University College London.”
On the back of these collaborations with Cambridge Enterprise, UCL Business and Oxford Spinout Equity Management, Imperial Innovations has made at least nine investments in spin-outs deriving from non-ICL universities.
Last year, the unit invested in Oxford Immunotec, a medical diagnostics firm which has developed a blood test for tuberculosis, University of Cambridge-linked companies Mission Therapeutics and Cambridge Communications Systems and invested £5m in biotechnology company Autifony Therapeutics, a spin-out from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) collaborating with the University College London’s Ear Institute and in which Searle has been a director.
Of her time at Imperial Innovations, Searle said: “It has been a long journey and taken a lot of energy to fundraise every year between 2005, 2006’s listing on Aim and run a business. It has been really hard work.” Innovations’ capital raisings include £140m ($225m) in 2011 and £30m debt from the European Investment Bank. Searle said that during her tenure as chief executive, Imperial Innovations invested £121m in the portfolio and the team grew to 53, with about 2,000 people employed in portfolio companies. Beyond its own balance-sheet funding, the portfolio companies have raised further funding. Since its flotation, Imperial Innovations spin-outs have attracted more than £430m in external funding, outstripping peers such as Oxford’s £340m since 2000 and UCL’s £370m since 2001.
Searle was clear that the order of priority for Imperial Innovations had been to gain the financing to build a team able to support the portfolio companies. Major shareholders in the unit are mutual fund manager Invesco Perpetual (45.5%), hedge fund Lansdowne (13.7%) and ICL (30.3%).
Searle said the strategy adopted by Imperial Innovations is not necessarily one others favour.
“The question for others wanting to follow our path and list is whether they have critical mass in a cluster and inclination to do so. Our job was to make a financial return and at Innovations we had a good portfolio and team that showed early successes in trade sales.
“The team proved they could invest more broadly and scale to make the financial model work as the few winners make the returns. Other universities have different objectives, to be facilitators through tech transfer offices and maybe provide proof-of-concept and seed funds as a catalyst to a spinout.
The UK has been proactive in this area and thought hard about it.
“While universities are generally good at supporting academics’ commercial ideas, how far should they go? Innovations has looked at this problem of long-term financing for companies that want to go their business rather than for the companies that just want to develop a technology that can be sold.
“Financing is a complicated issue. Most of the market is disconnected between groups that can provide seed money but are unable to support long-term and those able to back post-revenue investments. Invesco and Lansdowne have had a fantastic impact on the UK. They are Innovations’ other major investors beyond ICL, co-invest in its deals and back others, such as IP Group, that seed university start-ups.”
For example, Searle spent more than four years as a non-executive director at clean-tech firm Plaxica, which last month raised £8m in its series C round from an Imperial Innovations-led consortium that included Invesco. Imperial Innovations now invests, and looks to lead deals, in healthcare – therapeutics and medical technology – engineering, clean-tech and information technology companies both in the UK and abroad.
Under Searle, Imperial Innovations also expanded into India, founding, in 2008, Imperial Innovations India, a joint venture involving ICL (35%), conglomerate Tata and several non-resident Indian business people.
But as Imperial Innovations has developed from TTO to seed investor to venture investor, it has required different people to come in as the team has grown to more than 50.
Searle said: “Innovations’ skillset has changed from people with an IP [intellectual property], licensing and industry background to former entrepreneurs and now more with venture capital experience, such as Nigel Pitchford [who joined as managing director of healthcare in January 2012] who has built very big healthcare companies.
“While traditional venture capital firms look and evaluate and pick holes in an idea and say ‘if this is done we might invest’, we at Innovations said: ‘Is this a good opportunity? Is it a big market and is the science valid and disruptive?’ If so, we then try to work out how to prove and fund it. This is more similar to US venture, which employs technical people who know the science.
“For this business to be effective we needed to be longterm investors able to marry first-class university science with experienced management teams. We spent a lot of time using recruitment agents rather than just opening our black book of contacts to see if there was someone we knew who could help out a spin-out. Getting portfolio management is usually an area of compromise for a university but a first-class scientist will only respect a first-class manager and they will only join if the financing is in place. Good governance is key.”
And governance will continue to be an area of focus for Searle. She has joined one undisclosed board ahead of its expected flotation and is eyeing other, listed companies.
From that platform, she will continue to benefit start-ups by making sure boards ask management the right questions about how they are innovating and the tools, such as corporate venturing, they are using to reach outside the organization to disruptive ideas, including those from universities.

Comments from ex-colleagues at Imperial Innovations

Susan was one of the founders of Innovations, a role that benefited enormously from her tenacity, passion and desire to transform the technology transfer sector. This was coupled with a deep understanding of how universities work. She displayed energy, resilience, enthusiasm – in fact lots of essential founder attributes which have given her empathy with the technology researchers who form our start-ups.
Russ Cummings, now chief executive
 
Having worked alongside Susan on the Imperial-Circassia-Powderject deal in 2002, I was pleased to be invited to join her team at Imperial Innovations on a full-time basis in 2008. Her energy and enthusiasm for building exciting new businesses was always infectious, and she continued to be a big supporter of early-stage venturing at an important time through the economic downturn. I have enjoyed working with her greatly and would like to send my congratulations to Susan on her Lifetime Achievement Award, which is well deserved.
Simon Kerr, director of healthcare ventures from 2008 to 2013
 
Susan is one of those people who does not know the meaning of the words “cannot be done”.
Tony Hickson, managing director of technology transfer
 
Many people here at Innovations have their own personal anecdotes and fond memories of the time they worked with Susan, always positive, and often deeply personal. Many regard her as a friend and, in their dealings with her, appreciated her empathy and support. She is a very modest person, and while capable of speaking directly to the point, does so with great sensitivity to others’ feelings. More than once she has been referred to kindly as a “force of nature”, perhaps partly in reference to her seemingly boundless energy. When you meet Susan, you are immediately impressed by her sharp intellect, encyclopaedic knowledge and deep interest in the subject you are discussing.
Terry Nicklin, director of communications
 
I have known Susan for a number of years during which, I have admired her energy and commitment to the commercialsiation of science. Susan is highly creative, always looking for new or better ways of applying experience and knowledge to tricky new challenges. She has a very wide knowledge of the start-up and investment world which she has used to build Imperial Innovations into a most impressive organisation.
Chris Towler, director, Oxford Spin-out Equity Management