Fundraising

University of Buffalo's Innovation Hub has joined forces with a state government initiative to invest $10m in early-stage technologies.

TUM-affiliated UVC Partners has raised a third fund from limited partners including Lanxess to invest in industrial technologies, business-to-business software and mobility.

The federal development board for Southern Ontario has injected $5m to accelerate the growth potential of TIAP's early-stage health sciences portfolio.

Claudia Pingue, former Politecnico di Milano tech transfer manager, has taken on a leadership role at CDP's $177m spinout investment fund.

University endowment-backed Will Ventures aims to unlock sports-related innovation across markets such as fitness, media and gaming.

University endowments have backed a dollar-denominated venture capital fund from M31 Capital, whose earlier investments include Grail.

Steady is the assessment that comes to mind, rather than remarkable, when probing the year-on-year direction of corporate venture capital investment in university spinouts.

With hundreds of university venture funds, internal commercialisation vehicles and third-party firms the reality in today’s innovation ecosystem, selecting the nominees and the winner for Investment Unit of the Year is increasingly challenging.

One only has to look at the investors in the €117m ($135m) final close for Imec.xpand, the venture fund of nano-electronics research institute Imec, to see why it is worthy of GUV’s Fundraising of the Year award.